Referencing elderly parents

ang01622

My mum's bungalow was rented out when she moved into a retirement property. It is with an agency but I 'manage' it for her. At present there is a lovely Italian man who is moving his parents over from Italy as he is their only family and he wants to be able to look after them.
The agency has told him that there will be a charge for amending the tenancy agreement and they will charge him for running references on his parents (who are in their 80s!) I think this is ridiculous - can anyone see any reason why, for our own security, I should support the agency in doing this and will I be within my rights to say I don't want this to happen?

jamie11

ang01622 wrote: »

My mum's bungalow was rented out when she moved into a retirement property. It is with an agency but I 'manage' it for her. At present there is a lovely Italian man who is moving his parents over from Italy as he is their only family and he wants to be able to look after them.
The agency has told him that there will be a charge for amending the tenancy agreement and they will charge him for running references on his parents (who are in their 80s!) I think this is ridiculous - can anyone see any reason why, for our own security, I should support the agency in doing this and will I be within my rights to say I don't want this to happen?

You are perfectly within your rights to tell the agency to back off.

If your tenant is reliable now then he's likely to be reliable in the future.

If his parents stay as guests and he stops paying the rent and you have to evict eventually then the bailiffs (if needed) will remove everyone in the property when they do their job.

sandsni

I think it's wise to reference any tenant, no matter what their age. How long has the current tenant been living there? Are you sure it's legit and he's not just spinning you a yarn?


If you are happy that there's nothing untoward going on, then the agency has to respect YOUR MOTHER's wishes as she is the one paying them. So if your mother and you are happy to have them move in without references then you can instruct the agency to do it. Or you can pay for the referencing yourself so the charge is not passed on to the tenant.

BigAunty

It's just capitalism rather than a slur on the tenant's parents. 99% of letting agents charge fees to amend tenancy agreements and screen all tenants. Hopefully you can influence matters but so far, so normal. Many landlords are pleased that the letting agent doesn't let their tenant invite newcomers into the property without the landlord's consent, prevent subletting and assigning the tenancy without permission, and keep control of this basic aspect of managing a tenancy, such as knowing the identity of who is their property. It may be overboard in this instance but its a common practice to ensure the landlord knows who is in the property and that they don't come there with a history of rent arrears and evictions for anti social behaviour.

Kynthia

Surely if the parents will be living with their son then the son is still the tenant, still responsible for paying the rent and still responsible for ensuring the property is looked after? Therefore there is no subletting, assigning or parting with possession and any tenant that did want to do these is unlikely to be upfront and keep the LA/LL informed. So all we're doing is punishing a good tenant who is keeping his landlord in the loop without a very good reason.

ruggedtoast

The agency want the money for running the referencing, which will show very little if they are from another country anyway.

One of my friends had the same with a flat he lets out to a nice Latvian man. He doesn't want to 'know' about the parents living there because if they go on the tenancy and nice Latvian man stops paying his rent my friend then has to worry about getting authorisation for removing three people rather than just one.

Kynthia

I had a tenant who stopped paying rent. He also never mentioned that five additional family members would also be living there. When I was forced to get a possession order to evict him it made no difference to the judge that others were living there too. When the court ends the tenancy, all of the tenant's 'guests' leave too.

chanz4

Just the agents wanting money, the searches won't reveal anything due to age and other country

jayss

Your tennant was upfront, I'm glad you're taking their side against the agent. It's a nice counterbalance to the more depressing posts we have.