HELP!** Nightmare letting Agent Changing Lounge to Bedroom & entering without notice

KatyJohnstone25

Hello guys, Firstly thanks so much in advance for your help

My partner and I moved into a 3 bed flat in London 3 weeks ago.

Since moving in we have realised our letting agents are horrible! HELP!

Of the 3 bedrooms, we where the first to arrive. 2 weeks later we had another tenant and now we have one empty room.

Because the have lost 3 weeks of money from that room being empty they are now saying to make up for lost money they will rent out the lounge as a small bedroom. They have said they will drop our rent.... BUT thats not the point! I work from home & the reason we rented this out is because I need the living room to work from in the mornings when my partner is still in bed...

Not only that, but they literally turn up for veiwings. Dont even knock or give us ANY notice. Just key in the door & walk in. They are also showing COUPLES to both of the bedrooms - when we first moved in they PROMISED both us and the other tenant NO MORE COUPLES. But they have gone against their word. It seems they are ONLY doing couple veiwings to be honest. Which would mean potentially 7 People in a 3 bed flat!!!!!!!!


What are our rights with veiwings? (I read that the landlord/letting agent cant enter without 24 hours notice?)

What are their rights to just changing this lounge into a living room?

If i want to move out - because I cant work from home anymore - How can I terminate my contract and get all my deposit back?

NONE of this is my fault and im so worried they are just going to take our deposit

Ive had arguments with them and they said we are discouraging tenants at veiwings..... We just told the couples that they lied to us so are probably lying to you too! I think thats fair...??!?!


HELP PLEASE, will be soooo appreciated !!

Katy

mapcr77

By Law they should give you 24 hours notice. Shelter can give you advice on this.
I'd presume any terms of what is there in the flat as shared facilities (kitchen and sitting room) would be described in the tenancy agreement. If they violate this, you should have grounds to terminate the contract and get your deposit back.

Good luck!

propertyman

It depends firstly on what your contracts sets out as to what rights and areas you are entitled to have eg a lounge area, as well as access. You would then seek to enforce that by discussion or negotiation or ultimately in court. If the contract does not specify then thats a shame and you have to rely on what the property was offered as and hope a court will agree.

its a horrible situation without a doubt and one that there is no easy answer if the contract is not unequivocal on there being a lounge.

That in turn will affect access to the lounge to be bedroom for viewings as to whether unannounced access is a breach of quiet enjoyment. If the room is yours and the other areas shared, then they can, subject to the contract, enter at will.

BitterAndTwisted

Sounds like an HMO if you don't have a tenancy agreement giving you exclusive use of the whole property. If it is an HMO they can enter the property at any time of their choosing without giving any notice whatsoever, but not your own room.

What does your tenancy agreement have to say about you having use of the shared rooms in the property?

propertyman

mapcr77 wrote: »

By Law they should give you 24 hours notice. Shelter can give you advice on this.
I'd presume any terms of what is there in the flat as shared facilities (kitchen and sitting room) would be described in the tenancy agreement. If they violate this, you should have grounds to terminate the contract and get your deposit back.

Good luck!

No sorry thats not the case
1: there is no legal provision for any time limit at all- the contract will state any time limits otherwise the LL has a right to enter with or without notice and the T has the right to assert quiet enjoyment.
2: in this case we are not talking about exclusively enjoyed property/ room but a shared area and the rights are different. In broad terms the LL can enter at will to those areas.

Such a change does not mean that you can simply hand in the keys and insist on a deposit return- the LL will insist on rent being paid and would in most cases simply have a court award that the rent be adjusted to reflect the loss of the lounge.

The OP could in turn argue that the contract was frustrated and should be terminated but the tenancy would have to be very clear on what areas they were to use and show that the withdrawal was sufficient to make the contract worthy of being terminated by the court.

It's not as simple as we might hope to walk away.

pmlindyloo

You must check your contract.

Does it say you are renting a room and share the facilties or does it say that you are renting the whole house?

Your 'rights' will depend on this.

moneyistooshorttomention

They definitely shouldn't be treating you this way.

I would hazard a guess that the only way to deal with people like this is to keep right on doing what you're doing - ie telling prospective tenants that they are a lying load of *******.

I would do so myself in your position and think there was a good chance of either:
- no couples moving in and no-one booking the lounge

OR

- they throw YOU out and then I would assume you have no further obligations to them.

Either way - you win and the situation doesn't deteriorate to what you agreed.

poppysarah

Do HMO registrations with council specify numbers?

What does your contract say?

KatyJohnstone25

Thank you for all of your kind input.

Sounds like i do have an HMO but nothing like that is said in the contract, I dont have it on me right now but Im pretty sure ive never seen that expression. I guess I cant argue for him to do veiwings or have any control over the loung then. Bummer.

Hes now agreed on the rent being reduced by 20 pounds a week.
He said he wont be able to change the contract and that 20 pounds he'll have to set up as a bank transfer to our accounts.

Sounds really dodgy? Can i demand that he writes us a new contract with the new weekly price written in?

I really like the room & we have been out and bought a tonne of stuff to make it nice. Dont want to move so will do all I can to stay. Just don't want him to screw us over completely.

Next time i will go with an ARLA registered company FOR SURE. :-(

KatyJohnstone25

Also - what right do I have to ask for the Landlords details?
The letting agent are refusing to give me the details....?

I want to tell him how s*** this letting agent company is !!!

BitterAndTwisted

Your landlords details will be in your tenancy agreement under the bit that states "for the serving of notices".

Unless your TA states explicitly that you will have use of the shared areas, and names them, you are going to find things very difficult.