Ex not paying rent in joint tenancy

[Deleted User]

Personally I would agree to surrender the tenancy as others have advised. As well as wanting to enforce the contract I suspect you are also wanting to make her pay for cheating on you, which is understandable as I have a lot of sympathy for your situation. But going down the legal route could leave you even worse off and you may be better just finding somewhere new to live and looking to the future. I would however be asking her to pay any early surrender fees and her share of the rent until new tenants are found.

TBagpuss

The difficulrty is that she is not living there and is getting no benefit for the rent. If you can't sfford to pay on your own then our best bet would be to see whether you can negotaiate early surrender with the landlord, and/or see whether you can identify a new tenant so that the cost ot he landlord of you leaving is minimised.

I appreciate that she agreed to pay half the rent but I am not convinced that that agreement would be upheld by a court. Her contract is with the landlord, not with you. If you stopped paying the rent, the landlord could pursue both of you but there is no guarantee that you would end up paying half each.

sharp910sh

May I also say she had the keys and comes in when she wants yet doesn't want to pay the rent.

Let me understand this correctly she can rent a place and not be liable for the rent. Yet I cannot go after her.

I will have to pay the £100+ to go through the court, as I know she thinks I am not being serious. She signed a legal document to pay the rent, for an one bed flat she cannot pay it. I will not let her surrender the tenancy, I guess I will see her in court.

Thanks for the help.

We have an Informal contact that she would pay £435 a month, I have multiple payments to my bank account showing this. As well as emails from her confirming this.

Pixie5740

No you are not understanding it at all. I don't know how much clearer we can make it to you. You are both liable for the whole rent. The landlord doesn't care whether you each pay half, one of you pays all of it, one pays 30% and the other 70%, it does not matter. If you fall into arrears the landlord is perfectly entitled to go after one or both of you for the rent owed.

If you don't want her to have keys to the property then ask for them back or change the locks and give the new set of keys to the landlord when you move out. Make up your mind though, if you don't want her to have keys to a property then should you be pursuing her for rent?

You don't have to go to court. I don't know why you keep going on as though this is your only option. Actually I do, you're trying to punish her rather than just letting it go. Try and get out the tenancy, move out the property and move on with your life.

LannieDuck

Does she really still use the property as your last post suggests? If so, there's no question she should be held to the contract.

If not (and if she hasn't used it since she moved out), I think you've been lucky to get 4 months rent out of her. Legally, you may be in the right (depending on how the judge feels about your written agreements to each pay part of the joint tenancy), but enforcing that is a whole other matter as you're discovering. One of my friends did manage to get a judgement against a former housemate, but had to hire private bailiffs to enforce it (I'm not sure if that's technically the right term). The whole process took years.

I agree with the PPs. Early surrender is the obvious solution if your LL will go for it. Which s/he might if the alternative is that you can't afford the rent by yourself.

thesaint

TBagpuss wrote: »

I appreciate that she agreed to pay half the rent but I am not convinced that that agreement would be upheld by a court. Her contract is with the landlord, not with you.

The OP has stated he does have a contract with her for her to pay the rent.
He has evidence of her payments.

sharp910sh

I see the only options is for her totske her to court. She will get a ccj against her, very simple. Whether or not she will pay is a different story. As far as I know she will be scared when she has to go to court. And a similar thing happened before and rather than defending herself she just paid the sum owed.

Let me make this clear I will not be letting this go. So when would be the best time to take her to court?

Again I repeat dhe has keys and comes in when she wants. Yet won't pay the rent.

marksoton

sharp910sh wrote: »

May I also say she had the keys and comes in when she wants yet doesn't want to pay the rent.

Let me understand this correctly she can rent a place and not be liable for the rent. Yet I cannot go after her.

I will have to pay the £100+ to go through the court, as I know she thinks I am not being serious. She signed a legal document to pay the rent, for an one bed flat she cannot pay it. I will not let her surrender the tenancy, I guess I will see her in court.

Thanks for the help.

We have an Informal contact that she would pay £435 a month, I have multiple payments to my bank account showing this. As well as emails from her confirming this.

You're letting your bitterness towards her blind you.

As others have suggested there are more productive options than court. Ones that not only allow you to sort out your financial burden but also allow you to move on with your life.

Let karma sort her out.

mrginge

You need to mitigate her potential loss.

So either - get a lodger, offer early surrender.

If neither of those are possible, then send her a letter before action and take her to court.

If you have demonstrated the above, have evidence that she agreed to pay and actual previous payments, then imo you will win.

All this rubbish about her not living there so not being liable is nonsense.

Poppie68

You stand a good chance of losing in court if you haven't made steps to mitigate your losses ie: surrendering your tenancy,winning is not a forgone conclusion.