Landlord wants additional rent i didn't agree to???

mooooose

Hi, hope you can help with this little dilemma.

Moved into a shared house last June and 12 month contract signed by all 6 tenants. Sometime in February housemate A wants to add another 3 weeks to contract, and was discussed, but I did not agree to this since after the contract period I already have a place to live.

I moved out last week as the 12month contract had came to the end, but the 5 housemates are staying 3 more weeks. I called Landlord to check about moving out procedures and deposit returning, but it seems he believes that a contract extension has been signed for by housemate A. He wants the 3 weeks rent for my room, and is saying he will take it from my £200 deposit.

Housemate A believes I should pay this rent, however I never agreed to the extension by either verbal or signed contract.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

may_fair

I answered this already on LLZ. Here's a repeat of my post.

The following assumes this is a joint AST in England/Wales.

Firstly, you need to understand that in a joint tenancy, all JTs are individually and jointly liable for all of the rent, not just a 'share' for their room; in theory, LL could pursue you alone for all of the unpaid rent if the five others didn't pay their 'share'.

Housemate A cannot unilaterally extend the term of the contract, however, in order for the joint tenancy to end at fixed term expiry, all joint tenants would have had to vacate. The fact that they didn't means that a statutory periodic tenancy automatically arose on the day after the fixed term expired. The terms of the expired contract carry through into a SPT except for any provisions for notice.

Once the tenancy becomes periodic, any one of the JTs may give notice to end the tenancy for all. You are fairly lucky that only £200 is being demanded for a 3 week period, as the alternative would be that if you gave notice now, your liability wouldn't end until the end of the next tenancy period. E.g. if the fixed term expired last week on 7th June, the earliest your notice could expire, if you served it between today and 6th July, would be 6th August.