Intresting situ....need advice "landlord and deposits"

pennystrawberrylane

Long story short we rent two property's on the same land and agreement, me and hubby have one cottage and a two bed for my parents. we are brilliant tenants, paid rent on time very clean and tidy never had any problems, but now the landlady wants to sell...so looking for two property's near each other has been a nightmare, but we have found somewhere, which is perfect, gave 4 weeks notice on the 7th sept, only for the landlady to state that our agreement runs from the first of each month, so we will have to give notice on the first of october...But the property's we have found are empty and the new land lady has said we can move in on the 2nd october, we dont want to lose them, we offered 7 days rent up till the 7th october on this property but to no avail. So we have decided to pay octobers rent on the first, and enjoy our last month here, however i have decided to cancel all the viewings booked in for this weekend and on checking our rights we have stated that we want no viewings while we are here, we have a statutory right to quiet enjoyment of our home and having strangers coming and going violates this right and we have the right to refuse entry, a friend has suggested that due to us doing this the land lady could make a claim to our deposit which is held with the TDP ...so what i want to no is, would the TDP uphold her claim to keep our deposit on the grounds that we refused to let the EA in for viewings? There are no other grounds she could make a claim about...the house is spotless Thanks in advance.

dj1471

No that isn't a valid reason to deduct from a deposit, but you are being unreasonable by not allowing viewings.

booksurr

the landlady has every right to hold you to the statutory notice period and no right to deduct from your deposit

it says much about you as a person that you decided to play t i t for tat in "revenge" for something that was not vengeful to start with

G_M

What does your tenancy agreement say about viewings?

Please quote the exact wording.

pennystrawberrylane

I get that i am playing tit for tat and it may come over as petty but i dont see why she cant bend the rules and let us go three weeks early and i dont want to pay a full months rent on a property we are not living in, so we will stay until the end of the agreement but i dont want and never wanted hoards of people trooping through our home, and i did not know that we could execute our rights to not having viewings until yesterday, but because we are not unreasonable we originally agreed to viewings, the EA has said we can execute these rights. So in a nutshell she wont be able to make a claim to our deposit, thats what i wanted to know. so thank you.

cloo

She definitely can't keep your deposit for not allowing viewings. It might be reasonable of you to allow viewings in return for reduced rent, as that is an agreement some LLs and tenants come to, although it sounds like she's being quite immovable on that, and the fatc that you have initially refused them full stop may set her against agreeing any other compromise with you, but it's worth a try. Maybe try to phrase it that your not trying to hold her to ransome, but that it's fair to have a reduction for impact on your quality of life and privacy.

princeofpounds

If you haven't previously agreed to allow viewings, then you have zero obligation to do so, moral or otherwise.


There is nothing unreasonable about refusing viewings while your tenancy is running.


It is nice thing to do for a LL, and I would advise people to be nice most of the time, but if the LL is insistent on sticking to the letter of the law by refusing to be flexible on a tenancy termination date (which is totally acceptable too) then there is nothing wrong with being insistent yourself.


I think some of posters above who accuse you of revenge protest too much. A refusal to allow viewings may be a response to a perfectly legal move, but as a perfectly legal move itself it also cannot be considered vengeful. It's certainly not altruistic, but altruism thrives best in an environment of reciprocity.

Kevie192

His_Dudeness wrote: »

Put yourself in your landlord's shoes: Accepting to end your tenancy early without a new tenant lined up would cost her money for no benefit. Why would she do that?

Things tend to work out better if there is a quid pro quo.

You could have tried negotiation.
Perhaps you landlord would have agreed to advertise your property as available immediately and to end your tenancy early if a new tenant was willing to move in.
In which case you would have helped with viewings as much as you could.

Have you even read the OP? The LL is clearly looking to SELL.

His_Dudeness

Kevie192 wrote: »

Have you even read the OP? The LL is clearly looking to SELL.

I admit I couldn't bring myself to go through that wall of text. Thanks.

G_M

princeofpounds wrote: »

If you haven't previously agreed to allow viewings, then you have zero obligation to do so, moral or otherwise.

Until we get an answer to the question in post 4 above, we won't know if the OP has agreed previously or not.

There is nothing unreasonable about refusing viewings while your tenancy is running.

'unreasonable' implies a moral judgement - so back to the 'tit-for-tat' discussion.

Whether it's a breach of contract depends on.... what is written in the contract. In my view, if denying viewings is a breach of contract, that would fall under the definition of 'unreasonable'.

HappyMJ

Assuming the tenancy agreement does permit the landlord to request viewings and the tenant refuses access what would the penalty be for the breach of contract?