How to sue a landlord for harassment & info. r.e. a section 8 please!

poppysarah

I'm confused as to how many rooms are in the house? 2 bedrooms or 4?

caela_2

Emmzi wrote: »

The first thing is, you do not understand the law as regards rental agreements. You ramble, include a lot of irrelevant points to back up your case which actually don't, and do not understand your rights and obligations. Have a look around landlordzone and the shelter websites and get educated for a start.

Secondly, you do not understand the law about harrassment. You do not sue, you take out a restraining order. again, google is your friend, go and get educated.

thirdly, re: MSE forum etiquette - if you do not agree with a poster, even if they are on a wind up mission, put them on ignore. Ranting back at the WUMs makes you look terrible. Ignore button. It's what it's made for.

I cannot imagine why you want to counter the section 8, neither you nor the landlord will be happy with you in his house. your OCD is going crazy and he isn't getting any rent. I would talk to Shelter about the situation and finding more appropriate housing for your needs.

Actually, you can sue for harassment. There are many approaches, one of which is a restraining order, another is to write to the person, another is to contact the council to alert them of the matter and have them communicate with the landlord for you. Thankfully, I can use google, but you'll catch up don't worry. Another thing you are entitled to is compensation for personal stress/ financial loss as a result of harassment under the protection from harassment act. Another relevant act for anyone in this situation is the protection from eviction act and the misrepresentations act. The main query in my thread was exactly how one goes about suing a landlord for harassment and how to apply to the courts, as there is limited information available.

Secondly, if you can pin-point any 'irrelevant points' I've made, I'd love to hear them. Thirdly, I'm not here to look good to other posters, I'm here to share and gain information. This forum has sadly become a ranting arena for trolls and other recluses who are no longer interested in helping their fellow money-savers. I'm just doing a bit of weeding, as it were. Trying to get this place back to what it was. This thread clearly demonstrates people's willingness to comment on my post, without actually contributing anything, although a couple of posts have been vaguely helpful, however, I'm not sure anyone fully grasps the situation and that may be my poor explanation of it. To those who were questioning it, we are not actually liable for the entire rent as the contract specifically stipulates we pay per room. Therefore, we have no obligation to pay rent on behalf of another tenant or vacant room. It's a bit of a messed up situation, mainly because the landlord has done everything illegitimately to make things easier for him.

caela_2

poppysarah wrote: »

I'm confused as to how many rooms are in the house? 2 bedrooms or 4?

Lol sorry I know my post was a bit of a ramble but it's hard to get the points across cos there are so many different factors. It's a 5 bed house, 4 rooms which were taken until recently where one housemate was evicted and then 3 of us were left. Me and my boyfriend were renting 2 rooms, until the landlord told us to clear out one of them because we had the cats in there. So, now we have one room, but there are still 3 of us (2 rooms occupied). Hopefully that makes sense but it's pretty confusing I know. x

BitterAndTwisted

Bloody hell, after reading the renting equivalent of the Ancient Mariner we discover that they appear to be on individual tenancies. Simple: pay your own rent and give a appropriate notice. If there's nothing in writing about surrendering the second room you could be chased for that rent where there's no written proof.

Who was this Section 8 Notice addressed to? Did you all get one or did the LL issue it in all of the four/five names?

OP: you haven't done yourself any favours on this particular thread. If you want help you should keep to the pertinent facts and not treat people as if you were paying for their opinions and advice. Sheesh.

silvercar

If you are on individual contracts then the landlord can enter the common areas. If it is a joint tenancy then the landlord can't.

Either way you have an obligation to pay your rent - either individually for individual tenancies or as a group for joint tenancies.

silvercar

We then decide, after all this, we're not paying him and not only that, I want our money back and compensation.

What money back do you want? Rent money for the time you lived there?

It is all a bit confusing. As far as I can see, you want to leave, the landlord wants you to leave, so all that needs to be agreed is who owes who money?

BitterAndTwisted

I suspect the OP has some fantasy that because they don't understand what an HMO is and the landlord's right to enter the property they have an idea that all financial obligations can be ignored and a very satisfactory financial settlement could come their way. All completely and utterly without any foundation.

OP: just pay the rent you owe and get out of there. If I were your landlord and I had a tenant in there who defaulted on their rent I'd also be bloody furious that you let him sleep in the sitting-room. If you were so concerned about your friend they should have been sleeping with the cats in the second room you were paying for but not using.

G_M

caela wrote: »

..... To those who were questioning it, we are not actually liable for the entire rent as the contract specifically stipulates we pay per room. Therefore, we have no obligation to pay rent on behalf of another tenant or vacant room..

Yes you ramble. Yes you include irrelevant facts. Yes you miss pertinant facts, and yes you change your facts.

In my first post I tried hard to pin down the relevant points so that subsequent advice could be relelvant. I asked:

* what contract(s) do you have? One 'joint and several' which you all signed, or individual ones?

You answered:

AST contract (joint)- we a
ll signed,

Now you say:

the contract specifically stipulates we pay per room.

This is very different (and potentially unclear). Had you said this initially instead of misleadingly saying it was a 'joint AST' I would have sought further clarification by asking you to quote the exact wording in the contract.

Which is what I now ask.

I also asked:

* shared house? How many people? how many households? how many stories?

again to establish if this was or should be an HMO or communal house share - you failed to answer - again leaving us unclear of the set-up and therefore making clear advice hard.

edit: yes, on a forum like this there are always oddballs (I may well be one), and there are always well-meaning people who innocently give erroneous advice (I sometimes do). That's the price for seeking free advice from strangers! You take the oddballs on the chin and ignore them; you try to weed the good advice from the bad (possibly by seeing who agrees/disagrees with previous advice).

But you also make life easier for all by keeping your own posts easy to read and relevant. And not anatonising those people who are trying to help:

This thread clearly demonstrates people's willingness to comment on my post, without actually contributing anything, although a couple of posts have been vaguely helpful

Personally, I resent that and you have successfully 'weeded' me! (now, where's that 'ignore' button!)

edit again: nearly 12000 posts and I've finally found the 'ignore' function. 1st time!

BitterAndTwisted

G_M: you are a saint. I lost patience with the OP after the third paragraph in their initial post. I have a feeling they don't actually deserve any more attention because they can't concentrate on giving answers to the very clear and direct questions they have been asked. Instead they have gone on a rant which is all very well but the words "rambling" "irrelevant" and "rant" should have been in the title. Would have saved some of us wasting our time and effort

Hump

So I think the OP wanted to know how she should approach the legal bits, and having spent the last 30 minutes of my life reading the thread (which I'll never get back) I think he/ she is after the following:

Regardless of whether all 4 people signed one 'joint' tenancy or whether they all had individual tenancies it appears the landlord may not have given the OP a copy of his/her/their agreement - s47-48 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1987 may come into effect here, meaning no rent payable until or unless the landlord provides an address for the service of notices etc (and on demands for rent etc).

Now onto the unlawful eviction - the landlord appears to have changed the locks on one (or was it 2 doors) - certainly one (or maybe 2) person(s) has (have) been deprived of their home. Now I believe (and I may be wrong) that the person deprived of their accommodation (the useless sounding former mate) would be the one who would need to progress the action under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 either by complaining to the local housing authority or by undertaking their own action (same for s27 Housing Act 1988 - though this would be a personal case - the council wouldn't do this). Though the acts do provide comfort for the remaining tenants or joint tenants because 'trying' to evict them is also covered. So the OP either needs to bring their own prosecution or persuade the local housing authority to do so - and no personal criticism here, he/she/they probably need to agree a brief resume so as not to confuse the TRO (tenancy relations officer). The relevant court here in the first instance is the magistrates court (though it may proceed to crown court). For s27 (HA 1988) claims the relevant court is the county court (it's the s27 claim that would result in damages being awarded if the case were proven - but is the one the council won't get involved in - probably).

As regards the section 8 notice, the OP needs to carefully read the notice from start to finish to ensure every statutory requirement is met i.e. every blank space on the standard form is completed, including the full wording of every ground from schedule 2 which is being relied upon. The simple way to challenge the section 8 notice is to sit tight and await the court hearing and then go along and defend him/her/themselves. Again the relevant court here is the county court.

Of course the best readily available resource for this is the Shelter website.