Co-tenant not paying rent

RAS

You cannot end the tenancy with one month's notice now if you are in the fixed term.

At the end of the fixed term no notice is required.

You need to clarify the legal situation which none of your current posts do adequately.

With respect to each of the new tenants A, B and C, do they pay their rent to you or directly to the landlord?

Jamieb1988

RAS wrote: »

You cannot end the tenancy with one month's notice now if you are in the fixed term.

At the end of the fixed term no notice is required.

You need to clarify the legal situation which none of your current posts do adequately. Can you please expand on this as to information you need?

With respect to each of the new tenants A, B and C, do they pay their rent to you or directly to the landlord? They pay the rent directly to the landlord

Comments in bold.

RAS

Ok

Other may have a different take on this but it appears that your landlord is a right birk.

1. Regardless of whether there is a signed legal contract the LL has allowed three of the original tenants to leave and accepted rent from A,B and C who have replaced them. This means that there is an unwritten contract with A,B and C who are now co-tenants on the fixed term contract.

Therefore yourself, A,B and C are full jointly and severally liable for all the rent. The fact that you are the only original signatory is completely irrelevant.

You cannot give the poor-rent payer notice to quit because you are not the landlord.

The landlord cannot give notice either:

1. The tenancy can only terminate at the end of the fixed term not prior to that unless there is a break clause (is there a break clause written into the contract?)
2. Since he has not protected the deposit, not only is the LL unable to issue a section 21 notice to terminate the tenancy at the end of the fixed term, he is liable for a penalty of up to 3 times the deposit. He needs to pray that your lawyer friend does not find out.

What happened about the deposits when the other tenants moved out?

princeofpounds

OK this is becoming clearer now.

The LL clearly thinks that the OP is sub-letting to the new co-tenants. That is why they are keen to go after the OP specifically for any missing rent and that's why they are keen for the OP to give the new co-tenant who is not paying notice.

If only it were so easy!

If that was the case, this would be really easy to resolve. All the new co-tenants would be lodgers of the OP. They could be chucked out ASAP.

The HUGE problem the LL has is this: they accepted rent from the new co-tenants, rather than receiving it from the OP.

This means that the new co-tenants are likely full tenants of the LL, and the OP is in no position to give them notice. This means that the LL's notion of how the legal structure is set up needs to be quickly corrected. Foolish LL.

So the question is now a bit more complicated - were these new tenancies granted to the co-Ts, or were they assigned the position of the old tenants?

One plus out of this mess is that the LL may find it hard to enforce joint and several liability.

Jamie- can you tell us exactly what paperwork was done when the new tenants moved in?

Jamieb1988

RAS wrote: »

Ok

Other may have a different take on this but it appears that your landlord is a right birk.

1. Regardless of whether there is a signed legal contract the LL has allowed three of the original tenants to leave and accepted rent from A,B and C who have replaced them. This means that there is an unwritten contract with A,B and C who are now co-tenants on the fixed term contract.

Therefore yourself, A,B and C are full jointly and severally liable for all the rent. The fact that you are the only original signatory is completely irrelevant.

You cannot give the poor-rent payer notice to quit because you are not the landlord.

The landlord cannot give notice either:

1. The tenancy can only terminate at the end of the fixed term not prior to that unless there is a break clause (is there a break clause written into the contract?) I will check when I get in tonight, although I vaguely remember there being a 10 month break clause
2. Since he has not protected the deposit, not only is the LL unable to issue a section 21 notice to terminate the tenancy at the end of the fixed term, he is liable for a penalty of up to 3 times the deposit. He needs to pray that your lawyer friend does not find out. What is the criteria surrounding this? Do all four deposits have to be in the scheme or is it invalid if 3/4 are in?

What happened about the deposits when the other tenants moved out? They were paid back in full with no qualms (i'm assuming due to the last inventory being carried out when I first moved in in 2010

Have added my comments in bold.

Again - thanks for the help!

Jamieb1988

princeofpounds wrote: »

OK this is becoming clearer now.

The LL clearly thinks that the OP is sub-letting to the new co-tenants. That is why they are keen to go after the OP specifically for any missing rent and that's why they are keen for the OP to give the new co-tenant who is not paying notice. Just to confirm - it states in our tenancy that subletting is not allowed

If only it were so easy!

If that was the case, this would be really easy to resolve. All the new co-tenants would be lodgers of the OP. They could be chucked out ASAP.

The HUGE problem the LL has is this: they accepted rent from the new co-tenants, rather than receiving it from the OP.

This means that the new co-tenants are likely full tenants of the LL, and the OP is in no position to give them notice. This means that the LL's notion of how the legal structure is set up needs to be quickly corrected. Foolish LL. This is the impression that I get. The chap who i'm directly dealing with runs a maintenance company and he doesn't seem the most commercially minded. I don't have any direct dealings with the actual landlord

So the question is now a bit more complicated - were these new tenancies granted to the co-Ts, or were they assigned the position of the old tenants?

One plus out of this mess is that the LL may find it hard to enforce joint and several liability.

Jamie- can you tell us exactly what paperwork was done when the new tenants moved in?

Tenant A - December - No paperwork
Tenant B - January - No Paperwork
Tenant C - March - Paperwork issued 3-4 weeks ago in respect of tenant A&B too

Comments in bold. Again, thank you for the advice.

In regards to going back to the landlord and also co-tenant, how should I leave things?

RAS

Tenant C - March - Paperwork issued 3-4 weeks ago in respect of tenant A&B too

What exactly does this mean?

What paperwork was issued?

Why was paperwork re tenant C issued in respect of tenants A and B??

Do you have the landlord's name and address?

And is the person texting you the maintenance man or the landlord?

Jamieb1988

RAS wrote: »

What exactly does this mean?

What paperwork was issued? The only paperwork that I'm aware of that has been issued is the contract which was presented to us around 3-4 weeks ago.

Why was paperwork re tenant C issued in respect of tenants A and B?? In respect wasn't the appropriate word. Please ignore this

Do you have the landlord's name and address? No. I have the maintenance companies name and address. I don't actually know the landlord's name as - this is where it gets even more complicated - there was an issue with when we were originally moved in as the landlord died. His accountant then took over for the sake of us moving in whilst it went through probate. The LL is always referred to as 'the family' when speaking to the management / maintenance company.

And is the person texting you the maintenance man or the landlord? The guy who runs the day-to-day management / maintenance of the properties (apparently there's 43 in the portfolio if that's of any relevance)

Bold comments above. It's a bit of a mess to be honest.

pmlindyloo

Indeed a complete and utter mess!

My suggestion would be write to the management guy and ask for your landlord's name and address.

Useful link here:

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/landlord's_address.htm

When you get it you should inform the landlord that there is a complete mess up as regarding contracts/deposit/sub letting/whatever you want to mention.

Say that you have been taking advice and if you do not hear from them within 7 days you will be seeking legal advice as regards your position.

Since you want to stay there I would be as conciliatory as you can be, e.g. stressing your 'concern' at what is happening, how much you want to stay, management bloke asking you to do things (sorry that sounds awful!) that appear to be incorrect, asking if LL is aware of what is going on.

Seems to be that you have been put in a horrid position. In the end the LL is responsible and he is probably totally unaware of what is going on - gets the rent and leaves the rest to his 'agent'. Put him in the picture.

If you do not get the landlord's address then you will need to contact Shelter and get some help.

Just continue to pay your rent and let the LL sort this out.

RAS

The only paperwork that I'm aware of that has been issued is the contract which was presented to us around 3-4 weeks ago.

What date does the contract claim to start? And what dates does it end?