Wrong dates on rental agreement

stuart69

A few things:

Our names our not listed on the contracted,only our signatures.

The dates are entirely incorrect.

The rent increased from £495 to £500 pcm with no notice whatsoever or not even any verbal indication,it was simply on the contract.

She stated that we need to give one month but failed to explain the terms clearly.

She has failed to supply us with any deposit protection scheme details even though she promised to forward them to us.

These are the points i shall make when speaking to citizens advice,i feel the contract was missing legal requirements and also the landlady broke soem basic letting laws.(ie: deposit scheme,rent increase notification,missing and incorrect details on contract)

Realistically i do not expect anyone here to know what chance we have so CAB seems the only option.

THANKS ANYWAY FOR YOUR KIND REPLYS.

agrinnall

With so many issues on the new contract and with the LL I'm struggling to understand why you signed it at all, had you not done so you would have moved onto a periodic tenancy and you would have been able to give 1 month notice. The problem for you as I see it is that you did sign it, and regardless of the incorrect end date you are now in an agreement. The difficulty is going to be deciding when that end date actually is - my own guess is that in the absence of anything else that's valid it'll be 6 months from the start of the contract. At that point you do not have to give any notice to leave, you can simply walk away. Before then you can only leave without paying if you have the agreement of the LL.

You don't need the LL to tell you where your deposit is protected, you can check the three schemes yourself. If it isn't protected then I'm sure someone can point you in the direction of the process to make a claim against the LL.

dancingfairy

The problem is is that it appears that you were happy to sign a 6 month fixed term contract. The fact she told you there was a months notice and there wasn't is a pain but it is really up to you to have checked it all in fine detail before you signed it:(
Unfortunately it coudl all get messy and end up in the courts which will probably take until after March to sort out. You can try arguing on a technicality but whether you will win or not I'm unsure.
See what the CAB says but perhaps you could consider appealing to your landlords better nature and asking to be released early (with their consent in writing) or you may have to try and buy yourself out of the contract.
I hope you get it sorted.
df

G_M

Now I'm confused by the dates! Please confirm WHEN you signed this contract. Not what it says, but the actual date you signed. My understanding is one of these 2 options:

The original tenancy states 6 months COMMENCING FROM 01/09/10 AND EXPIRING 01/03/10. Correct?
And it genuinely DID start on 1/9/10? Correct?
So clearly the intention was that it would run to March 11 and there was a simple misprint. Correct?
Then it expired and you moved to a monthly periodic tenancy. Correct?

In which case you need to give one months notice ending at the end of the month (or arguably on the 1st of the next month).

OR
The most recent tenancy you signed actually started on 1/9/11 for 6 months and should therefore end in March 2012, but had several date errors? Correct?

In which case you are in a fixed term till March. You could try getting the tenancy set aside by a judge on the basis of the errors but I'm pretty sure a judge would say "you signed it in Sept 2011. You intended it to be 6 months, so that's what it should be".

Your other issues:
* deposit: why have you left it till now to press for protection?
* rent increase - it was on the contract and you signed the contract so you agreed to it - no notice was needed.
* notice explanation - no explanation required. Notice periods are either set out by law, or within the contract which you signed
* Missing names on contract. Not ideal, but it does not invalidate your signature.
* agent - it is entirely up to the landlady whether to manage her property herself or pay an agent to do it for her
* Verbal explanation of notice - the "one month notice by tenant and 2 months by landlord" almost certainly applies AFTER the fixed term has expired in March. She may have explained badly or you may have misunderstood, but surely when signing a 6 month contract (you must have realised it was a 6 month contract even if you did not spot the wrong dates!?) you are commiting to ...... 6 months!

The only errors I see are the dates (which can be deduced as explained above) and the failure to register the deposit, which you should be pressing for.

stuart69

Unfortunately the cab office is closed on wednesday for drop ins,appointments only.

I am trying,through the letting agent of the new property i want to move to,to ask the landlady to hold the property until feburary,at least that would give us a little financial relief although we would still be paying for a months rent on the current property when we were not even dwelling there in that month.

I cannot be bothered to go down the road of disputes/arguments so am trying to find other ways of keeping everyone happy.It is just stressful as the landlady is so rude and lazy.

BitterAndTwisted

Why don't you answer GM's questions? From the sounds of it, IF the start-date on the agreement is correct you've been on a periodic tenancy since last March, so only one month's notice would be required. When you signed the contract did you date your signature?

stuart69

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Why don't you answer GM's questions? From the sounds of it, IF the start-date on the agreement is correct you've been on a periodic tenancy since last March, so only one month's notice would be required. When you signed the contract did you date your signature?

Sorry yes there is a section that says binding date of contract is 08/08/11,this is the only date that is correct.But surely if the dates of the 6 month term are wrong our tenacy automatically goes into a periodical state of month by month? I have just been on the phone to someone who works for tenacy support for the council/nhs and she has advised me that as the dates are incorrect the contract is completely void and we are entitled to move out in a months time and she has advised us to seek further advise on the deposit and how to obtain it.

Now i am confused.:(

This lady works with my sister in law who is a community mental health support worker,but i will triple check all the details before going ahead with such a bold move.

*miaomiao*

I'm sorry that it isn't going to be what you want to hear, but G_M has given you the advice you need based on either of the two scenarios.

The fact that the dates were wrong on the contract is bad behaviour by the landlady and ideally you would have caught this and corrected it when reading your contract before signing, but because the contract was for 6 months and you signed in Aug/Sept 2011 this contract, this means you are going to have to pay until the end of the 6 months.

You can always look to come to an agreement IN WRITING with the LL that you are able to leave before then or to find her a new tenant, or you can just pay until the end of March 2012. You could choose not stay there, but legally you will have to pay. You could try to bargain with the fact that she has not protected your deposit because this is serious and you should contact her about it IN WRITING.

BTW, what happened to your deposit from when you started the tenancy? Did the agency protect it when they had received it?

Bad LL behaviour, but sadly her bad behaviour is not going to help you end a bad living situation and tenancy in this case. It would be better for you to find an alternate situation as I don't believe you will have any luck at all in court but you may waste a lot of money and suffer a lot of stress.

As I said, I'm sorry that this isn't the answer you hoped for. And good luck with your future home.

BitterAndTwisted

Nope, if you signed that six month AST in August this year then it would be clear that the intention was for the tenancy to be a fixed-term from September this year to the end of next February. Trying to argue that the contract is unenforceable I think would be pretty pointless under the circumstances. At the time you signed you should have understood how the contract would bind you. Trying to find a way of weaseling out of it now because of a typo smacks of desperate opportunism. I wouldn't fancy your chances in court.

DVardysShadow

stuart69 wrote: »

... But surely if the dates of the 6 month term are wrong our tenacy automatically goes into a periodical state of month by month? I have just been on the phone to someone who works for tenacy support for the council/nhs and she has advised me that as the dates are incorrect the contract is completely void and we are entitled to move out in a months time and she has advised us to seek further advise on the deposit and how to obtain it.

Look, you can believe who you want to believe and if you can bluff the Landlady into believing it, then all well and good, case closed.

But the truth of the matter is that if there are defects in a contract, a court will seek to impose the agreement which was understood at the time it was agreed.

stuart69 wrote: »

A few things:

Our names our not listed on the contracted,only our signatures. ...

You really are clutching onto straws with this. If you read back a few posts

DVardysShadow wrote: »

At the time you signed the new agreement, the intent was that it should run to March 2012. So if it went to court, that is the date which would probably be upheld. Unless you could sustain an argument that the agreement was dated wrongly and known to be so to cover the landlady for her lack of a contract due to dropping the Agent.

That argument might get you somewhere if you want to get out of the contract. But your names not being listed on a contract you have actually signed ranks up there as an excuse along with the dog eating your homework.

I am sorry, this well meaning person who works in NHS/council tenancy support really does not know the rest of her anatomy from her elbow when it comes to a contract. The defect in the dates DOES NOT MAKE THIS TENANCY CONTRACT VOID. If it goes to court, the contract is whatever a judge decides you agreed to on the day. So it is a case of spin the wheel of justice.