URGENT advice needed. Letting agent threatening to change locks on my door

dorset_nurse

The OP is not refusing access. Just checking where he stands!

DVardysShadow

propertyman wrote: »

If you would like to pay my normally hourly rate - yes you can see it! Or you can search yourself.

On a point of clarification statute law is contract law.
Law as a body, comes from Statute the xxxx Act, and secondary legislation statutory instruments SI, and then case law, forming precedents, which cannot trump the Act or the SI.

I am only trying to help the poor bullied resident with some helpful advice, not get into an argument.....

If you !!!!!! enough to charge for your advice, find another site [to be topical]. I should have said statute law overrides contract, so apologies. And your argument does tend to support the view that statute law trumps the contract. At the very least for the contract to prevail, I would expect the contract to contain an explicit waiver of the statute.

I would go with you as far as not putting in writing that all viewings are refused. Best not to turn it into a principle. But 1900 on Thursday? Sorry, no, but 0500 on Wednesday would be OK.

QuantumSuccess

How long does it typically take for a Section 8 application, from serving of notice to actual hearing date? Are we talking days, or weeks (or more)?

may_fair

dorset_nurse wrote: »

The OP is not refusing access.

Not yet, perhaps, but he states in post #70:

QuantumSuccess wrote: »

If the LA wants to conduct viewings I am going to refuse them.

rodent

Instead of playing hardball with them watch the BT advert - "It's good to talk!" (or write nicely at least!)

I would personally do this by phone or in person first to see where you are with them. And then get into written comms if necessary later.

I would discuss the lock & key first, then move onto the fact that you would actually like to enter into a new AST - which will probably result in no S8, no viewings and you get to live happily ever after.

It is your right to refuse viewings - period, but it is LL/LA right to recover any losses should you get to this point. I agree with the above comments - allocate a resonable 2 hr window once a week - you will then have no problems.

erghblah

Just google "section 8 uk renting" and you'll get some hits. I'm a new poster so can't do links, but found one really decent website which details the different sections. So you have a Section 12 which they'd be applying under "The Tenant has breached any term of the tenancy agreement (other than the ones relating to the payment of rent)". And then it goes on to say...

"Groundsare discretionary, meaning that the court will not necessarily rule in the landlord's favour even if he can prove that one of the grounds applies. In these cases it is at the court's discretion whether to grant a landlord a possession order. They will weigh up the facts and make a decision based on what they see as fair and reasonable.
[FONT=&quot] If a court is satisfied that a landlord is entitled to possession on one of the grounds, then the court will grant a possession order to take effect within 14 days. It is possible that this will be extended to six weeks if it will cause the tenant to experience exceptional hardship."

And it also mentions that non-payment of rent is the main grounds for a section 8... Sorry if there is !!!!!! spacing (and the Grounds bit should have the different grounds but can't get it to post!).
[/FONT]

propertyman

DVardysShadow wrote: »

If you !!!!!! enough to charge for your advice, find another site [to be topical]. I should have said statute law overrides contract, so apologies. And your argument does tend to support the view that statute law trumps the contract. At the very least for the contract to prevail, I would expect the contract to contain an explicit waiver of the statute.

I would go with you as far as not putting in writing that all viewings are refused. Best not to turn it into a principle. But 1900 on Thursday? Sorry, no, but 0500 on Wednesday would be OK.

Well I have been along time lurker before the current refugees turned up :eek:. I had given my advice, I was only suggesting that if you want precedent that I want paying (LOL).

The problem with statute overriding contract is that quiet enjoyment is a right to be expressed and claimed and which can be contracted out of quite lawfully. You and I could agree to go into say gun running and draw up a contract, however the law would override it as the act, gun running is illegal.

So in this case if the tenancy allows access their claim to illegal access and quiet enjoyment rests on not " you cant come in at all" but were the parties reasonable in the access requests denials.

So; never accept a standard clause in a tenancy- explain that you are happy to help but there are limits, and would prefer not to fall out over it in x months time.

mchale

OP, presumably you didn't get written permission to put a extra lock on the front door, thread carefully on this 1 as you may well be billed for a replacement front door when you move out

may_fair

mchale wrote: »

OP, presumably you didn't get written permission to put a extra lock on the front door, thread carefully on this 1 as you may well be billed for a replacement front door when you move out

If LL tried to claim for a replacement door, he'd get nowhere. The maximum he could possibly get would be the cost of reinstating the original lock (or similar) plus the cost of repairing any damage caused by installing the new lock(s).

mchale

may_fair wrote: »

If LL tried to claim for a replacement door, he'd get nowhere. The maximum he could possibly get would be the cost of reinstating the original lock (or similar) plus the cost of repairing any damage caused by installing the new lock(s).

What if its a upvc door????