Renting problem

Lizzye

The reason I've told them about the credit is because we have to pay for the credit check to be made and if we do this at every one to be turned away it ends up being very expensive and we're trying to keep as much money together as we can so as to move out. It's pretty pricey down here as it is :-/
My other half has he's experian report though, but it's six months old now. Not sure if that would help matters.

mildredalien

That's understandable. All I can give you is my experience though - despite both myself and my partner having defaults on our credit report we ran in to no problems at the credit check part of the letting process. And IIRC, the check that came back only made mention of searching for CCJs, DROs and bankruptcy. I'm not sure they even look for defaults?

Our current landlords are private though so we didn't have to go through that process fortunately. Keep trying gumtree etc. for a private place!

Better_Days

Sorry to hear of your troubles, sounds very stressful. I do hope you find somewhere else to live soon. Do ask around about lettings rather than just relying on letting agents, you never know a friend of a friend may be happy to rent to a reliable tenant.

Just as an aside, as your LL is collecting rent in cash every month I wonder if she is declaring the income to HMRC and if she has consent to let (if the property is mortgaged).

BitterAndTwisted

Lizzy: if your landlady's husband is a violent man, he will be known to the police already. Go to your local station and warn them that you might have need of their assistance and explain why.

If your OH is on a decent salary (and £40k is a decent one) your poor credit-records may not be as great an obstacle as you might think. What landlords and agents will be looking at is affordability. The kind of searches they are able to do are not as extensive or detailed as a bank or other lender can. Only CCJs and the like will show up, so if you have none, please stop worrying. NEVER tell an agent up-front that you think you have a bad credit-record.

For a start, you have your deposit-money up your sleeves as the last month's rent in your current property, so you're going to need a month's rent in advance plus the referencing fees to find in order to get out of there and that might not be as great a stretch as you may think.

Then, once you are out of there you can have a good think about taking the landlady to court for non-protection of your deposit. Imagine what you could do with that three-times-the-deposit-as-penalty money. And dob her in with HMRC in case she's not declaring the rental-income.

tim123456789

Lizzye wrote: »

She reissued the section 21 to us correctly, that's how I then found out about the deposit, through the council asking if it had been put in the scheme and obviously me being oblivious. Thus why they phoned her. She made a mistake by saying she would get us out 'outside the law' as I'm pretty sure council record their phone calls. She also told them we had destroyed her house, which I can assure you we haven't. I have taken photos of every room and sent these to the council as back up, just in case anything were to happen... Her husband is a violent man, tbh I'm mostly worried about him. I know if he comes anywhere near us I should phone the police etc but obviously I don't want to put my kids through that. We've lived in this house trouble free for five years, now I'm worried she won't even give us a good reference when we do leave.

If she can't actually evict us, what can she do? I mean, this is after all her house. She must have rights of her own?

Of couse she can "evict you" But she has to get the process right and so far she hasn't.

And each time she goes to court to enforce an incorrect eviction it will cost you nothing (except for turning up to defend it). It's only the one where she wins you have to pay for.

And you don't get the "three" times fine by default any more. The court will decide how much the fine will be, up to three times the amount

Lizzye

tim123456789 wrote: »

And each time she goes to court to enforce an incorrect eviction it will cost you nothing (except for turning up to defend it). It's only the one where she wins you have to pay for.

What do you mean we'll have to pay??

franklee

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Therefore. if you're on a Statutory Periodic Tenancy shes will have to issue you with a Section 13 Notice in order to increase the rent giving you at least two clear rental-periods notice.

No, it's one period for section 13, two is for section 21.

Lizzye wrote: »

After all we will need to next week when the rents due. The entire time we've been here she's come round to collect in person, in cash every month.

I hope you get a receipt or you could be chased for fictitious rent arrears. Rent is cash would make me think it's dodgy. Why not ask for bank details and offer to pay electronically or by cheque?

Do you have an address for the serving of notices?

Do you know the landlady's address?

Point is if you can't trace the landlady you have a problem suing over your deposit. That's one reason why the schemes are helpful, the tenant knows where the deposit is and how to claim it back.

Oh and I'd change the locks if the landlady has keys.

franklee

Lizzye wrote: »

What do you mean we'll have to pay??

I think a tenant often has to pay the court fees if they challenge a section 21 that turns out to be valid. Something in the region of 175 quid IIRC. If the S21 is invalid then I would expect the landlord cannot win fees off the tenant.

BitterAndTwisted

I cannot see how the landlady has managed to correctly serve this Section 21 Notice while the deposit remains either unprotected or unrefunded.

If she attempts to get to court to have it enforced you MUST attend court. Your defence is that the S21 is invalid, and will remain invalid until and unless your full deposit is either protected or refunded. Then she will have to reissue yet another S21 giving you another two rental-periods notice.

This one could run and run until Christmas.

Lizzye

Yes we've always kept receipts for every payment made, she has a receipt and so do we and she signs them. We have all of them in a folder. I don't doubt that she's doing some sort of tax fiddle as we've ask before just to pay it into her account, aside from anything it was annoying having her come over every month.

The section 21 she served is invalid. That's why the council called her and to enquire as to whether she had put our deposit in the scheme and when she said she didn't realise she had to they told her what we've been told and went mad. Aside from saying she was going to outside the law she also said she would be onto to her solicitors too, but I can't help that think that she's only going to be told the same thing really.

Like i say, I just want to move out before this gets messy, if you think for definite that my OH defaults won't make a difference, even though they are £15,000.00 worth then I may try again tomorrow without divulging the info. Most of that debt is interest added on.