Tenant subletting without consent

duchy

This made me laugh but there is some truth in it.

You rented him the flat as unoccupied and there is an expectation he needs to return it to you in the same condition -less wear and tear.

He isn't returning it to you unoccupied - therefore it is not in the same condition - so he loses his deposit.

Personally I would not be returning it just yet anyway but asking for a forwarding address to send it to - and giving the police that address to deal with the fraud and to the family to attempt to sue for their deposit back first.

fairy_lights wrote: »

But surely moving out of a property and leaving a family of four living in it counts as damage!
When I've moved out of flats in the past the letting agency have said they will charge £50 for every bag or rubbish they have to remove if the flat isn't left clean and empty. Surely you could deduct a lot more for leaving four human beings behind?

Voyager2002

ncooper1974 wrote: »

In respect of him getting his deposit back, I have spoken with the DPS about this and the only reason I can keep the deposit is if there is damage to the property, missing items or unpaid rent - all of which is not the case.

His behaviour is a major breach of his tenancy agreement.

jjlandlord

He breached the terms of his tenancy, so all and any resulting costs incurred by ncooper1974 are recoverable from his deposit.
That may include costs of dealing with the mess (what is happening now), costs of evicting tenant/subtenant, costs of damage caused by subtenant, etc.

As the tenant has left the property, is subletting it, and his tenancy is periodic, arguably the tenancy is no longer an AST and may be terminated by notice to quit and, as such I don't see why OP should pay his tenant in exchange of him surrendering the tenancy.
Not least because, as mentioned in links previous posted, a surrender might make OP automatically take over the subtenant (which would then include liability for the deposit the subtenant paid!).

As advised, it would be worth talking to a professional at least to have a clear legal view of the current situation and of possible solutions.

I will then need to further arrange a time for the old tenant to come back to the flat to collect his furniture.

The subtenant is down £2k at the moment. If I were him I would not allow access until I see some cash.
That might not be legal, but it seems that they are not amongst gentlemen, are they?

duchy

If I'm expecting an empty flat returned and instead I get one full of objects - I don't see the difference between animate and inanimate objects -surely both are damage to the flat as it prevents the LL from reletting it ?

Might sound odd but it may be worth talking to Shelter -as they are likely to have seen this from the tenant side more often and may be able to give you solid grounds for refusing to return the deposit or at least delaying it.

ncooper1974

Certainly delaying the return of the deposit is something I will look into until I can clarify the situation.
On the other hand, I would rather the current family are no longer harassed by the tenant, and it seems returning the deposit to the tenant is one way that this might be achieved.

I will be meeting the family again today, and will explain to them the process whereby they can sue for 3x the deposit unless it is returned. I have seen the tenancy agreement that they had with the tenant, and there is an address on there - whether this is the actual address that the tenant now resides in is unclear.

G_M

You are absolutley mad.

return his deposit? :rotfl:

As for what DPS said, ignore. Refuse to use the deposit arbitartion scheme (which is optional) and let him take you to court if he wants his deposit back. then present to the court the evidence:
* property not returned with vacant possession]
* breaches of contract
* all your consequential expences etc

He won't stand a chance.

As for giving permission for the family to stay, equally mad - you have pretty well granted a tenancy, or licence, or something. If they fail the referencing and/or refuse to pay a 2nd deposit to you etc, you may be stuck with them anyway.

You should also not be getting involved in the 'harassment of the family by the tenant' beyond perhaps calling police/giving evidence. The family have a landlord who is harassing them - that is between them. Just as the deposit they paid is also not your issue.

I know you are trying to be a nice guy, but you need a certain amount of dispationate thinking here. What is your issue (focus on that)? What is theirs (don't get involved)? What outcome do you want?

justcat

ncooper1974 wrote: »

whereby they can sue for 3x the deposit unless it is returned. .

I think it doesn't matter whether it's returned or not - it's if it wasn't protected.

ncooper1974

G_M - At the moment I haven't suffered any consequently expense. This may or may not change in the future depending on what the final outcome is with the family - either remaining as tenants or vacating.

As for giving the family 'permission to stay' - I'm not sure that I have? I certainly don't have any authority to evict them without a court order, and any attempt to do so would probably result in them calling the police again. What I have done is simply stopped the original tenant from entering the flat and changing the locks with 3 of his 'friends'.

My preferred outcome would be that the family pass credit and reference checks, and then take over the tenancy on a 6 month AST. If that were to happen then subject to me being happy with the inventory, then I see no further reason why I should keep the deposit? As you have already said, any subsequent issues between the tenant and the family are not my business

stator

Personally I think you just need to get them onto a real tenancy, forget about credit checks and deposits in order to get them to sign on the dotted line. Then if they don't make the payments on time you can start eviction asap. If they do make payments just carry on as normal.
If you start demanding credit checks and deposits they won't sign a new tenancy so evicting them might be more difficult.

HereBeDragons_2

G_M wrote: »

You are absolutley mad.

return his deposit? :rotfl:

As for what DPS said, ignore. Refuse to use the deposit arbitartion scheme (which is optional) and let him take you to court if he wants his deposit back. then present to the court the evidence:
* property not returned with vacant possession]
* breaches of contract
* all your consequential expences etc

He won't stand a chance.

As for giving permission for the family to stay, equally mad - you have pretty well granted a tenancy, or licence, or something. If they fail the referencing and/or refuse to pay a 2nd deposit to you etc, you may be stuck with them anyway.

You should also not be getting involved in the 'harassment of the family by the tenant' beyond perhaps calling police/giving evidence. The family have a landlord who is harassing them - that is between them. Just as the deposit they paid is also not your issue.

I know you are trying to be a nice guy, but you need a certain amount of dispationate thinking here. What is your issue (focus on that)? What is theirs (don't get involved)? What outcome do you want?

Spot on. Returning the deposit is insane when the property has not been returned to you vacant, and there is every possibility you will incur further costs through having to sort out this mess.

You would be wise to change all the locks asap, so that both your property and the family have some protection from him and his thuggish mates. The cost of doing that is also a valid reason to give DPS for withholding his deposit. Very good advice from G_M to refuse arbitration under the circumstances, and make him take you to court to get it back.

If you change the locks you also won't have to worry about returning his deposit as an incentive to get the keys back. He sounds like a nasty piece of work, and I bet he'll be back. Don't bow to that implicit threat and return his deposit because of that though - people like him rely on intimidating the genuine landlord and current occupants in order to get away with their scam.

If you agreed to the tenant leaving on 3rd March and he returned on 10th March to illegally evict the family, who was paying rent between those dates? It's unclear whether his AST has actually ended or not.

You seem strangely sympathetic towards the tenant rather than protecting your own interests here - e.g. talking about how little extra he was making from the family. I would be considering taking action against him for breaking and entering if I were you!

I also do not understand why you would even consider letting to this family, given that the thing that alerted you to their presence in the first place was complaints about noise from the neighbours. I do feel for them in this situation but I suspect that by allowing them to stay on you're signing up for more trouble in the long run.