adding spouse to a tenancy

bjbyorkshire

My tenant has been in the property for 6 months, everything is fine and he has paid on time etc. He is getting married next week and has just phoned me to say that the Estate Agents who manage the property for me have told him that he will have to pay a £95 fee to add his wife to the tenancy. He is not happy with that and I also don't think it seems justified. I will speak to the agents on Monday but just wonder if you think that this is totally necessary. Surely if the original tenant pays the rent and is responsible for the original agreement then upon marriage his wife should just be able to move in without him paying a fee to re write the tenancy.

Thanks Beverley

jamie11

bjbyorkshire wrote: »

My tenant has been in the property for 6 months, everything is fine and he has paid on time etc. He is getting married next week and has just phoned me to say that the Estate Agents who manage the property for me have told him that he will have to pay a £95 fee to add his wife to the tenancy. He is not happy with that and I also don't think it seems justified. I will speak to the agents on Monday but just wonder if you think that this is totally necessary. Surely if the original tenant pays the rent and is responsible for the original agreement then upon marriage his wife should just be able to move in without him paying a fee to re write the tenancy.

Thanks Beverley

This is exactly what gives agents a bad name. :mad:

He does not have to pay the agent anything, he's perfectly within his rights to move his new wife in.

Note the agent is YOUR agent, not his. You are in charge, just tell the agent to back off. Or sack him. Read your T&C's.

bjbyorkshire

Thanks Jamie, at least I know now that I am in my rights to tell the Agents that I don't want them to make this charge. I am happy for her to move in and no extra payment is needed. A good tenant is worth keeping sweet in my opinion.

Werdnal

bjbyorkshire wrote: »

Thanks Jamie, at least I know now that I am in my rights to tell the Agents that I don't want them to make this charge. I am happy for her to move in and no extra payment is needed. A good tenant is worth keeping sweet in my opinion.

:T


Tell agents to keep their nose out! Nothing to do with them - you are the LL, you employ them to run your tenancy your way, so you call the shots!

The only benefit of having wife named on the tenancy would be if there was every a claim for arrears, damages etc, you would have 2 people to sue, but if you are 100% happy with the way things are, then let it continue as is.

G_M

I agree 100% with the above replies.

There are of course three options (I'm not recommending them as such though):

1) a Deed of Variation, signed by tenant, wife, and landlord, adding wife's name to the existing tenancy
2) a new tenancy granted, with both names as joint tenants
3) no new documents, wife moves in and becomes an 'Excluded Occupier' - nothing wrong with this

Either of those two documents could be drawn up by yourself without agent involvement and therefore without agent fee.

However

* you may not feel confident drawing them up
* you may question why you are paying an agent and then drawing up docs yourself!

tbs624

OP - note that if the T's wife is to be a "permitted occupier" this means that there is no contractual relationship between her and you as LL: she personally would not be bound by the terms of the AST, although you could pursue the husband as T, if necessary, as she would effectively be his guest and he would therefore be responsible for any actions/omissions on her part which affected the property.

I would formalise the wife's occupancy of the property ( whether as PO or JT) so that all parties are clear. You may prefer to have the wife listed as a Joint Tenant: should the husband lose his job/have his working hours reduced you then have both of them responsible for paying the full rent. You may possibly feel it worthwhile to cover the cost of the wife's referencing if you are keen on keeping a decent T - cost would be tax deductible.

Fully agree with the other respond posters that you need to ensure that you tell your LA how you wish your property rental to be handled but you may find that charges to both you and your T for any changes to a tenancy are set out clearly in your agreement with the LA.

bjbyorkshire

Thanks to all of you who have answered. I have taken on board your ideas and I have also managed a telephone conversation with the L/A who say that the £95 charge is for the wife to be credit checked and that they have to pay this amount to the credit checking agency and yes I can just let her move in without being added to the tenancy agreement but then I will have no recompense for a claim on the rent guarantee scheme which I currently have if my original tenant defaults on the rent. Oh dear???!!! I have arranged to meet with my tenant tomorrow as he has a couple of things we need to repair and so I might suggest that we pay half each of this cost as it is to my advantage to have my rent guaranteed and also to keep him if he is a good tenant and looks like staying for a while. If we loose him then have to start looking for new tenants we will probably lose rent as well so that's where I think we might be able to compromise.

I am sorely tempted to manage the property myself rather than pay the agents 12 and a half per cent every month but there are so many rules to follow I really feel timid to go down the self management route.

Thanks again and I will up date the thread when there is anything further to tell you.

bjbyorkshire

jamie11

bjbyorkshire wrote: »

Thanks to all of you who have answered. I have taken on board your ideas and I have also managed a telephone conversation with the L/A who say that the £95 charge is for the wife to be credit checked and that they have to pay this amount to the credit checking agency and yes I can just let her move in without being added to the tenancy agreement but then I will have no recompense for a claim on the rent guarantee scheme which I currently have if my original tenant defaults on the rent. Oh dear???!!! I have arranged to meet with my tenant tomorrow as he has a couple of things we need to repair and so I might suggest that we pay half each of this cost as it is to my advantage to have my rent guaranteed and also to keep him if he is a good tenant and looks like staying for a while. If we loose him then have to start looking for new tenants we will probably lose rent as well so that's where I think we might be able to compromise.

I am sorely tempted to manage the property myself rather than pay the agents 12 and a half per cent every month but there are so many rules to follow I really feel timid to go down the self management route.

Thanks again and I will up date the thread when there is anything further to tell you.

bjbyorkshire

You're falling for a load of blarney.

1. Credit checks rarely cost £95.

2. I very much doubt the Ins. Co. has said any such thing, have you a copy of their T&C's, call them up yourself and ask if it's true.

3. 12.5% is very expensive for management, have you looked around?
If you live within a reasonable distance from the property then managing yourself is a good idea, there's plenty of people here and elsewhere to guide you along.

Mozzanov

bjbyorkshire wrote: »

Thanks to all of you who have answered. I have taken on board your ideas and I have also managed a telephone conversation with the L/A who say that the £95 charge is for the wife to be credit checked and that they have to pay this amount to the credit checking agency and yes I can just let her move in without being added to the tenancy agreement but then I will have no recompense for a claim on the rent guarantee scheme which I currently have if my original tenant defaults on the rent. Oh dear???!!! I have arranged to meet with my tenant tomorrow as he has a couple of things we need to repair and so I might suggest that we pay half each of this cost as it is to my advantage to have my rent guaranteed and also to keep him if he is a good tenant and looks like staying for a while. If we loose him then have to start looking for new tenants we will probably lose rent as well so that's where I think we might be able to compromise.

I am sorely tempted to manage the property myself rather than pay the agents 12 and a half per cent every month but there are so many rules to follow I really feel timid to go down the self management route.

£15-25 per tenant to do a credit check (Experian). References aren't really hard to do - have a template, fill in the details and wait for the results (you could post or - just like the referencing companies seem to often do - send an email). LLs on here might be able to tell you cheaper routes for a credit check.

Be brave and manage it yourself. It might be worth checking out http://www.rla.org.uk/

bjbyorkshire

Thanks again for all the info, I will read my terms and conditions as to how easy or difficult/costly it will be to tell the Estate Agents that I now want to manage the property myself. They got the tenant for me 6 months ago and he is now going onto a rolling tenancy but I will ask him not to sign anything until I can read what I am liable for if I do decide to manage it myself. I did look around and they were in the mid range for our area (Huddersfield) for fees. Theirs included everything without any additional charges to me, in fact I don't think from memory I have paid them anything except their monthly management fees whereas the tenant paid for reference and credit checks.

Will update you all on progress.
Thanks

bjbyorkshire

Hi again, I have met with the tenant today and he was very nice (he even asked us to take our shoes off as he was looking after the carpet for us) but also very knowledgeable as he has 3 properties which he lets out in a different area and he does seem to know the ins and outs of letting property. His wife to be is adamant that she will not pay £95 to be credit checked so I asked "would you accept my offer to pay half the fee at then I will still have the rent guarantee in place") He said that was not the issue, it is the principle of charging them a rate which they feel is extortionate when he has already been checked and is the tenant and she would be living with him as his wife. Hmmmm..... this is just the scenario I fear if I went down the self managing route. I would not be forceful enough to stand up to 2 such strong minded individuals in the event of for instance a claim on the deposit for damage to carpet or marks in a wall when they move furniture for instance. I still feel that even though a lot of you have no time to EA/LA that I do have at least a bit of back up if a problem arises. You may well know different from previous experience. I am going to sit tight for the moment as my tenant says his soon to be wife will be taking the issue up with the Letting Agent and I do get the feeling she won't be quite the pushover that I might be. I will keep you updated on the outcome in due course.

How do I keep this thread easy to find after a few days without having to run down every page to look for my original post title please?