Landlord allowing third party storage in garage we are paying rent for

Mandychard

Hello again - I found my last little dip into the world of this forum incredibly helpful so I thought you might be able to help me reconcile another situation.

As I mentioned we are currently renting and have been since 1st September, our 3 bed house came with a garage but the landlord said she couldn't let us have the key immediately as she still had some belongings in there. This was fine by us as we didn't really need it. As the weather started to turn we thought we'd better get our bikes inside and finally move my husbands golf clubs out of the lounge. We asked for the key, it them transpired our landlady has allowed some friends of hers, a couple of have moved from abroad into a house nearby to use the garage also. We were given the impression it wasn't a lot of stuff. After much nagging we finally got the key for the garage on Thursday and on gaining access this weekend its nearly 3/4 full of other peoples stuff.

Now whilst we could still get what we needed in there in my view we have effectively been subsidising a third party's storage costs for the best part of the last 6 months. When you consider 100sq ft of storage with the likes of Big Yellow etc is £170 - £175 a month its quite a considerable cost our rent is subsidising.

We are going to raise it with our landlady's agent and say its not really appropriate but before doing so I'd quite like to check where we stand from a legal point of view and how we might propose to resolve the situation.

Many thanks in advance.

Mandy

robatwork

I would start with a letter. The garage is 100sq ft? What about the rest of your property?

I would divide that into the rent, multiply by 6 (months) and that's a starting figure for negotiations. I would also mention that in a certain time period (14 days?) you will be disposing of the items but they are freely available for collection up to that time. You may want to leave this bit until letter 2 however.

theartfullodger

Does the tenancy mention the garage - as included or excluded??

Is the garage attached to/on the property or is it some way away??

If it is specifically excluded or not on the deeds/plan (get a copy from land registry, online, takes a few minutes) you are probably not entitled to it, but may have been misled.

(For example I have a house with a garage the tenancy for which specifically excludes the garage...).

Mandychard

theartfullodger wrote: »

Does the tenancy mention the garage - as included or excluded??

Is the garage attached to/on the property or is it some way away??

If it is specifically excluded or not on the deeds/plan (get a copy from land registry, online, takes a few minutes) you are probably not entitled to it, but may have been misled.

(For example I have a house with a garage the tenancy for which specifically excludes the garage...).

The garage is explicitly included in the definition of "the premises" under the terms of our tenancy agreement. Its in a block of garages close to the property. The landlady has always said she would be happy to arrange for it to be cleared but because we were led to believe it was only a couple of bits we weren't particularly worried. It took so long to get the keys however and we are feeling more than a little taken advantage of.

Mandychard

robatwork wrote: »

I would start with a letter. The garage is 100sq ft? What about the rest of your property?

I would divide that into the rent, multiply by 6 (months) and that's a starting figure for negotiations. I would also mention that in a certain time period (14 days?) you will be disposing of the items but they are freely available for collection up to that time. You may want to leave this bit until letter 2 however.

The garage is 3x6 so 18 sq m, I was thinking for arguments sake 3/4 of that (13.5 sq m) so 100 sq ft as a round figure. Its a 3 bed house, I've been looking for the original marketing details with the size of the rest of the house but can't find them.

We're currently on a fixed term contract ending on 29th Feb, they tried to get us to sign up for another fixed term but as in my previous thread we are looking to buy again so we asked to go onto a periodic (as is allowed for under the terms of our agreement) but the letting agent tried to tell us no so we are already having a battle with them about that. I'm a littler nervous about the negotiations as I don't want to antagonise so much they serve notice but I also don't want to be taken for a ride either.

D_M_E

Until this is resolved, I would not store or put anything I owned in the garage as there would be a danger of it being removed along with the current other person's property.

theartfullodger

Mandychard wrote: »

The garage is explicitly included in the definition of "the premises" under the terms of our tenancy agreement. ......

In that case it is "your property" during the tenancy, yours to use or not use as you choose (within the terms of the tenancy...).

So tell people what you want to happen!

MortgageMamma

I rent too so I can see how careful you need to be with handling this.

If its in the tenancy agreement you should have had full use of it from day one, and the landlady should have been upfront with you about the storage of others goods in there. How close are you to buying a new property? to be honest, I know you'd rather not do this but it takes a long time to get a tenant out of a property when they don't want to leave so if you are thinking of buying within say 6 months you should be ok to challenge it.

If you are being pushed by the agent to sign for another 6 months then the landlady is obviously insecure about finding new tenants quickly, it would cost her time and money to do that, it would cost her time an money to evict you and she would risk not receiving rent. You could call her bluff and insist on a partial rent refund...

Mandychard

MortgageMamma wrote: »

How close are you to buying a new property?..

Ideally we're thinking Oct/Nov we should have additional savings for deposits etc but if we find our ideal home we could go anytime from now and the shorter period we're paying out rent the better in our view, hence not wanting to tie ourselves in for another 6 months.

Our tenancy states that at the end of the fixed term it can go month to month until terminated by either party by serving two months notice. (I know under the housing act it's usually 1 month for the tenant, 2 months for the landlord so some clever drafting on their part).

So whilst you say it can take a while to get tenants who don't want to go out. My husbands concern is that is we go after them over this they'll just say they'll clear the garage and then serve us notice so he'd rather let them get away with it whereas I'm thinking, hang on we are paying for people we don't even knows storage solution.

MortgageMamma

I can see why its getting on your nerves it would wind me up too

Have you thought about speaking to shelter or trading standards? They may know a way forward where you are not jeapordising your tenancy. Even if a LL gave you notice to quit you could still stay put it would take a while in court.

Perhaps you could consider taking action AFTER the tenancy has ended or once you have put an offer in on a property? (check this out though first as once you've left you may have missed the boat).

MortgageMamma

I know there is a law whereby if a LL fails to repair something covered by a tenancy agreement you can withhold a portion of the rent. So long as you can prove you have it in your account there is nothing they can do about it. Perhaps it may be worth considering this option?