Landlord moved new tenants in during our notice period and is refusing to communicate

mouche

Hi…I could really use some advice from all the experts on this board. I’ll try to keep the background as brief as possible but it’s a long story so please bear with me.

1. In 2008, my husband and I rented a property through an estate agent. We paid a £1000 deposit plus other charges and asked for the deposit to be placed in a government scheme. Our contract says that it was placed with Tenancy Deposit Solutions. We have a receipt for the deposit signed by the estate agent and a copy of the contract signed by us and the landlord. The contract was for 6 months and began on the 10th of the month. The contract contains only the email and mobile number of the landlord not the address.
2. No inventory was done or signed at the time of entering the house.
3. We met the landlord and his brother on the day we moved in – they told us they lived in a different London borough. When the landlord heard we’d signed a 6 month contract he was taken aback as he had instructed the agents to let it for a year. We assured him we intended to stay for longer than 6 months but had preferred a shorter contract as we were new to the area.
4. One year after we moved in, the landlord sent us a new contract beginning on the 1st of the month. He said to ignore calls from the estate agents as he no longer wanted to deal with them. We refused to sign the contract, saying that since we were now on a rolling contract, we preferred to stay on it as we could then give a month’s notice instead of committing to a fixed term. He agreed to this and we still have the unsigned contract in our possession.
5. While we were in the house, the landlord came to inspect the property once and complained about the state of the garden. We acknowledged that it was overgrown but pointed out it had been overgrown when we got it. He said ‘no according to the photographs’. We had never been shown any photographs prior to or after moving in. He asked us to tidy the garden but otherwise had no issues.
6. 3.5 years after we moved in, we bought our own property and gave one months’ notice on the 10th of September. We gave notice by email (different from the one on the contract as the landlord had moved to Switzerland and had provided us with a different email and number) and he acknowledged the notice by email asking us to cooperate with his brother who would be bringing round prospective tenants.
7. We moved out of the property 2 weeks into the 1 month’s notice but had paid the rent in advance up until the final date of the notice, which is 9th Oct. We returned to the property a couple of times to clean it and collect our mail and when we left it was in perfect condition – better than when we had received it.
8. The landlord’s brother took tenants to see the property while it was empty and verbally confirmed to us that he was happy with the condition of the house. No checkout was done however and we still had the keys.
9. On Sunday (2nd Oct), the landlord’s brother telephoned us asking if he could move new tenants in immediately since we had vacated the house. We said ok on the condition that the rent for the period 2nd-9th October was refunded to us. He agreed initially and then texted us saying that since we had not returned the keys we were responsible until we did so.
10. Please note that on Sunday, he gave us 2 hours notice to move the tenants in and collect the keys – we had plans and were unable to accommodate though we offered to meet him to return the keys later that evening at the rental property. He said it was too late that day and he would contact us the next day to collect the keys and he would only return the rent for the days remaining between return of keys and end of notice period. We did not reply to this text message as we were furious by this time.
11. The next day we emailed the landlord directly telling him what had occurred and pointing out to him that it was illegal to rent the same property to two people for the same period and that if we were responsible for the rent until the keys were collected, we were also entitled to enter the property and remove intruders until our notice period expired. We also pointed out that we had rung the different deposit schemes and none of them had our deposit, therefore we were entitled to sue him for 3 times the deposit amount. We said that we did not want to cause trouble having had a good relationship with him thus far and that we were sure his brother was acting without his approval in the matter of moving tenants in early.
12. We received no response to the email (sent yesterday morning) or to the texts sent yesterday and today. Today my husband has emailed him saying that if he hasn’t heard from him by EOD, he will be entering the house accompanied by police to recover our belongings. The brother was also copied into this email a text sent asking them to check their email urgently. There has been no response and when my husband tried to call the landlord’s Swiss number, the person who answered claimed it was a wrong number.
13. We now believe the landlord is in cahoots with his brother and is trying to keep the excess rent and the deposit.

In these circumstances, what are our rights and options? My primary concern is not to break the law ourselves so I am concerned that we still have the keys and the end of the notice period is approaching fast. My next concern is to recover the deposit. Could you please advise what is the best course of action to take at this stage? Would very much appreciate it.

neas

YOu should've received confirmation of the deposit being registered with a deposit protection scheme.

If the landlord didnt protect it then you can sue them for 3x the amount in the small claims court i think.. Other people may be able to give you some more advice.

RAS

There is a whole lot wrong with this.

Assuming this is England and Wales

if the landlord lives outside the UK

1. Did he provide you with a UK address with which to communicate?
2. Did you provide you with the HMRC documentation to prove he was paying UK tax (otherwise you are required to deduct the tax payments from the rent).

Have you checked whether the deposit is registered with any of the three schemes?

BitterAndTwisted

Don't bother with claiming the three-times deposit as penalty. Check with the TDS to confirm whether or not your deposit has been registered with them now before you do anything.

You may have lost your overpaid rent unless you can get documentary evidence that the property was re-let during your notice period.

I would concentrate on getting your deposit back even if that meant going to the small claims court to secure it.

No dual-signed check-in inventory equals no deductions from your deposit.

chewmylegoff

You said the property was empty, but then talk about going back in to recover your possessions. Are there actually any of your possessions left in the property? If so, how much are they worth?

mouche

Thank you neas and RAS.

To clarify:

1. Yes, this is England and Wales
2. He provided us with a UK address when we asked for one for the council tax form - this was a few weeks ago before all these issues started cropping up.
3. He did not provide us with any HMRC documentation. At the time we started renting the property he was resident in the UK. I've just checked old emails from him and he provided us with a Swiss forwarding address for his post in 2010. That's when he gave us his Swiss phone number as well. It was only the one time he asked for his post to be forwarded - he had mail redirection set up so only a few letters for him came to us.
4. We have checked with all three deposit schemes and they have no record of a deposit being registered for that address.

jjlandlord

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

You may have lost your overpaid rent unless you can get documentary evidence that the property was re-let during your notice period.

I'm not sure whether rent paid in advance as in case of OP is refundable by default. It may be something to agree on when accepting to end the tenancy earlier.

mouche

Thank you Bitter and chew.

I thought as much regarding the rent and deposit. It's just really sad that people can treat others like this. We've been totally straight up as tenants going out of our way for the landlord and he hasn't been too bad himself until this happened.

chew, there are a few bits and pieces left at the house. The main thing I'm concerned about is our post as having assumed we had the house till 9th, our postal redirection doesn't start till then - which means at least a week's worth of mail will be delivered there, including some important letters we're expecting.

mouche

I guess a couple of the more pressing questions in my mind are:

1) Are we legally allowed to enter the house now that new tenants have moved in? Considering that no checkout has been done for us and we have the keys & have paid for the property till 9th? Or should we ring the bell and ask for our mail?

2) If the landlord refuses to communicate, how do we return the keys?

RAS

You need to write today to the UK address, not e-mail, and make it explicit that you have tried to return the keys and referring to previous telephone conversations and e-mails.

E-mail has limited value in the law courts.

Advise that if you hear no more, you will return the keys to the house.#

Two copies first class from different post offices with certificates of posting.

anselld

I fear you may be escallating things too quickly and assuming the worst. In 24 hours you seem to have gone from reasonably happy to threatening legal action and entry with the police.

I can't see any threat of unreasonable deductions from deposit etc by LL or brother. It was reasonable to refund rent for the period after keys were returned and reasonable for LL to ask permission for new Ts to occupy early.

OK, non-protection of deposit is bad. However, you seem to agree that LL has otherwise been reasonable. Why not just ask brother to meet at the house for return of keys, collection of mail and to discuss return of deposit and any remaining rent?