Help re squatters (I think)

dlk

Thank you to anybody who can offer any advice on the following problem I've found myself in. Hopefully there is someone who knows the correct process or has had some experience in this area.


I have been renting a house out to somebody for the last three years. Today I received a letter from environmental health to advise me that they had received numerous complaints from neighbours about both noise and a mountain of dog excrement in the garden. There was a post-it note attached to the letter to say two of the neighbours had asked if I would call them and provided phone numbers.


I called the numbers and discovered that the person I have been renting to hasn't actually lived there for the last 7 months. I have still been receiving his rent which is paid directly from housing benefit so hadn't realised he wasn't there. Instead there have been two other people living in the house who I know nothing about (presumably my old tenant is subletting or something). Apparently the new people living there have two Staffordshire Bull Terriers roaming the neighbourhood freely, there has been numerous police visits including a drug raid and several occasions of the new person beating his wife/partner. The neighbour I called had been round to the house to ask if they could quieten down and was subsequently told to go away (but not quite so politely).


I don't know who these people are, they have no tenancies, so is this basically an equivalent situation to squatters and I need to follow the process for squatter eviction rather than tenant eviction?


I'm guessing I'm going to need a solicitor eventually but to save some money does anyone know how I should start the process of their eviction? Is there a way of getting the process started before getting the solicitor started or should I simply get a solicitor to deal with it from the start?


Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Sarahspangles

I don't know about the squatting situation, but if you tell the Housing Benefit office they are likely to investigate and that may scare off the non-tenants as it seems likely they are involved themselves.

patman99

The first point of contact should be the local Council to inform them that your former tenant appears to be sub-letting the property whilst still in receipt of HB. They will start a fraud investigation.

As for the people who are now living in your property, I would suggest speaking to a solicitor. If, as you suspect, these people are renting from your tenant (illegally), they may have no idea that the person they are renting from is in fact not the owner of the property and has no right to rent it to them.

They will possibley have a rental agreement with this person and therefore may have quite a shock when they find-out the person who really owns the property is someone else.

davidmcn

dlk wrote: »

(presumably my old tenant is subletting or something)

In which case it seems to me that you don't have squatters, you have a tenant who is breaching the terms of their tenancy agreement. So you go down the tenant eviction avenue.

dlk

patman99 wrote: »

As for the people who are now living in your property, I would suggest speaking to a solicitor. If, as you suspect, these people are renting from your tenant (illegally), they may have no idea that the person they are renting from is in fact not the owner of the property and has no right to rent it to them.

They will possibley have a rental agreement with this person and therefore may have quite a shock when they find-out the person who really owns the property is someone else.

That's a good point, I hadn't even thought of the fact that they may not know they aren't renting legally

gazter

If HB is being paid direct, isn't overpayment clawback a potential issue?

Kynthia

davidmcn wrote: »

In which case it seems to me that you don't have squatters, you have a tenant who is breaching the terms of their tenancy agreement. So you go down the tenant eviction avenue.

This is what I would do. I would begin the s21 process to end the tenancy of your tenant. They would then be responsible for evicting who they have sublet too. However I would probably do more research on eviction when the property has been sublet and maybe visit Landlordzone.co.uk.

specialboy

gazter wrote: »

If HB is being paid direct, isn't overpayment clawback a potential issue?

^^This^^ You ay have to pay back any rent received since your tenant left the property.

dlk

gazter wrote: »

If HB is being paid direct, isn't overpayment clawback a potential issue?

While that's not my number one priority anyway according to the council this isnt an issue. This is only the case if it was my choice to have rent paid direct. The rent was two months behind so they started paying direct so rent isn't clawed back

dlk

Kynthia wrote: »

This is what I would do. I would begin the s21 process to end the tenancy of your tenant. They would then be responsible for evicting who they have sublet too. However I would probably do more research on eviction when the property has been sublet and maybe visit Landlordzone.co.uk.

Thanks. As I now have no way of contacting the genuine tenant, does the s21 still work if its simply delivered to an address that he is no longer living at as he won't get the notice.

princeofpounds

Thanks. As I now have no way of contacting the genuine tenant, does the s21 still work if its simply delivered to an address that he is no longer living at as he won't get the notice

Yes, I believe it does.

You need to start possession proceedings. Ending your tenant's tenancy will end any sub-tenancy that was granted on the back of it automatically.

They aren't squatters by the way, unless the original tenant never gave them permission to be in there, which is unlikely.