Renting, moved out, still responsible for house, landlord gaining unauthorised entry

Mahsroh

Just cannot understand the LL's stance on this.... I've done it once before.... with the outgoing tenants permission, I.e:

Tenant: We've give our notice which takes us up to the 28th, but we're physically moving out on the 14th.
Me: No worries - do you have any objections to me going in between the 14th and 28th to do some repairs / upgrades?
Tenant: No problem at all.

SIMPLE! It's amazing how far a little bit of communication can go. In this case the LL wants to have their cake and eat it.

Personally, i'd just write a strongly worded letter advising than they took possession of the property on XXXXX and therefore, your obligations have ended and no more rent is due. The end! Leave the ball in their court. they'll have to go legal to recover the rent but won't get very far!

MEM62

pimento wrote: »

The landlord can't have it all ways. If they don't want the place empty (which it would be during void periods anyway) they should let the tenant negotiate an early exit.

The OP should definitely have changed the lock and should do so now if they haven't already.

I absolutely agree, the landlord should have agreed early termination and, in this case, is very much in the wrong. My comment re vacant periods, is my personal feeling on the subject. I lease my property because I want someone living in it - if I want it sitting empty I can achieve that quite easily.

lookstraightahead

This type of landlord gives landlords a bad name. Tenants don’t babysit their property by staying in it all the time. Within the year we will be buying but I will certainly have a transition time to make life easier. I’m allowed not to be sitting in the property - it’s no business of the landlord. Appalling behaviour.

Red-Squirrel_2

Mahsroh wrote: »

Just cannot understand the LL's stance on this.... I've done it once before.... with the outgoing tenants permission, I.e:

Tenant: We've give our notice which takes us up to the 28th, but we're physically moving out on the 14th.
Me: No worries - do you have any objections to me going in between the 14th and 28th to do some repairs / upgrades?
Tenant: No problem at all.

But did you also expect them to pay up until the 28th?

Mahsroh

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

But did you also expect them to pay up until the 28th?

I didn't INSIST that they pay up to 28th, but they did. They gave 1months notice and paid their last months rent but then moved out earlier than planned. In fairness I gave them their deposit back in full where there was a couple of things I could have easily deducted. We had a good relationship... swings and roundabouts - we were both happy at the end of tenancy.... ultimately borne out of good communication between the two of us.

Red-Squirrel_2

Mahsroh wrote: »

I didn't INSIST that they pay up to 28th, but they did. They gave 1months notice and paid their last months rent but then moved out earlier than planned. In fairness I gave them their deposit back in full where there was a couple of things I could have easily deducted. We had a good relationship... swings and roundabouts - we were both happy at the end of tenancy.... ultimately borne out of good communication between the two of us.

So you took possession back but carried on charging rent.

Mahsroh

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

So you took possession back but carried on charging rent.

In reality, no. I didn't refund a final payment that had already been paid and instead returned their deposit in full rather than make deductions that the tenant had acknowledged. Ultimately we robbed Peter to pay Paul. Rather than me refunding £200 then taking the same £200 off the deposit. We had a SENSIBLE CONVERSATION where we agreed that solution as a final settlement. The point I was making was that all this was agreed sensibly and amicably through communication between the two parties - rather than a landlord just doing what he pleased.

But, yeah, if it makes you feel better then scrap the above - i'm a horrible nasty landlord...... Thankfully my tenants didn't think so.

ripplyuk

I would just stop paying rent. The landlord will throw a hissy fit and probably threaten court action. Let them. I doubt they’d win once a judge hears the whole story. You have already bought a house so you don’t need to worry about getting a good reference from the agency/LL.

If you want any money back from the landlord, you’ll probably have to go to the small claims court.