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Landlord is sabotaging onwards house move

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Situation is
- originally moved in Sept 2017 on a 12 month AST. Property is in England.
- in March my old flatmate moved out and I was told I had to sign a new 12 month AST
- the agreement, and indeed it has happened twice before, is that if you wish to move out prior to the end of the fixed term, you simply have to find a new tenant to replace you and that was fine. With 20/20 hindsight, I realise they didn't need references as one did a midnight flit and the other emigrated.
- I told the LL I was moving out on 14/8, and that a search for new tenants would shortly commence (my flatmate who will be staying wanted to do the search, understandably). On or before 30/8, new tenants had been found, the landlord had been told and we had asked him to sort out paperwork. Unfortunately, in the subsequent 3.5 weeks, the LL has completely failed to respond to any of the chasing emails sent, and the phone just rings out.
- I spoke to some builders last week who thought he might be on a fortnight's holiday (no out of office email, no warning, no answerphone message, no nothing). They said he would be back today, but the phone still just rings out.
- I am due to move into my new property in 7 days, and the new tenants to move in on the same day, and yet he still has not provided a reference. Understandably, the new LA is chasing me for this.
- I've offered the new LA a reference from my previous LL, but they're not sure if the referencing company will accept it.
- I cannot afford to lose this property as, not only will I lose my £330 holding deposit, but it took me a long time to find the new property as I have a dog. In addition, if I don't go, I suspect my flatmate will move out and I will be trapped back into another new 12 month AST - thus the cycle will continue.
- there's no deposit ("I couldn't be bothered to protect it"), simply paid first and last month's rent upfront. No inventory either, and no inspections (not even between tenants).

Any thoughts on how to sort this out?

If I lose the next property due to LL's failure to provide a reference, it's just going to happen again and I'll be trapped here. I'm tempted to stop paying rent, get evicted, move back to the parental home briefly and then use my parents as a LL reference. I understand this will cause issues for my flatmate too, but he's not exactly the model flatmate. Certainly if he loses me the £330 holding deposit then I'll deduct that from next month's rent. Alternative / supplementary option is to tell him about the dog in the no pets flat (left behind by a previous tenant... long story but ultimately not my doing that the dog is here) which I'll be taking with me if he gives me a reference. I literally don't know what else to do :(
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  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Eighth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic
    Situation is
    - originally moved in Sept 2017 on a 12 month AST. Property is in England.
    - in March my old flatmate moved out and I was told I had to sign a new 12 month AST
    - the agreement, and indeed it has happened twice before, is that if you wish to move out prior to the end of the fixed term, you simply have to find a new tenant to replace you and that was fine. With 20/20 hindsight, I realise they didn't need references as one did a midnight flit and the other emigrated.
    - I told the LL I was moving out on 14/8, and that a search for new tenants would shortly commence (my flatmate who will be staying wanted to do the search, understandably). On or before 30/8, new tenants had been found, the landlord had been told and we had asked him to sort out paperwork. Unfortunately, in the subsequent 3.5 weeks, the LL has completely failed to respond to any of the chasing emails sent, and the phone just rings out.
    - I spoke to some builders last week who thought he might be on a fortnight's holiday (no out of office email, no warning, no answerphone message, no nothing). They said he would be back today, but the phone still just rings out.
    - I am due to move into my new property in 7 days, and the new tenants to move in on the same day, and yet he still has not provided a reference. Understandably, the new LA is chasing me for this.
    - I've offered the new LA a reference from my previous LL, but they're not sure if the referencing company will accept it.
    - I cannot afford to lose this property as, not only will I lose my £330 holding deposit, but it took me a long time to find the new property as I have a dog. In addition, if I don't go, I suspect my flatmate will move out and I will be trapped back into another new 12 month AST - thus the cycle will continue.
    - there's no deposit ("I couldn't be bothered to protect it"), simply paid first and last month's rent upfront. No inventory either, and no inspections (not even between tenants).

    Any thoughts on how to sort this out?

    If I lose the next property due to LL's failure to provide a reference, it's just going to happen again and I'll be trapped here. I'm tempted to stop paying rent, get evicted, move back to the parental home briefly and then use my parents as a LL reference. I understand this will cause issues for my flatmate too, but he's not exactly the model flatmate. Certainly if he loses me the £330 holding deposit then I'll deduct that from next month's rent. Alternative / supplementary option is to tell him about the dog in the no pets flat (left behind by a previous tenant... long story but ultimately not my doing that the dog is here) which I'll be taking with me if he gives me a reference. I literally don't know what else to do :(

    I'm getting a strong sense of deja vu here.

    You want to surrender a fixed term AST early or have a deed of variation drawn up to change the names on the existing AST. You say there is an agreement that if you want to leave the tenancy early you simply need to find a new tenant. Is that actually written into the tenancy agreement? If so please quote the clause verbatim.
  • Certainly if he loses me the £330 holding deposit then I'll deduct that from next month's rent.

    That would be a really daft thing to do.
  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Eighth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic
    I think you literally need to be prepared to lose the £330 holding deposit because your actions have been premature. If you decide to stop paying rent and move back to your parents the landlord can pursue you through the courts for the outstanding rent and if you don't cough up have a CCJ awarded against you. Good luck finding a new rental with a CCJ and a dog.
  • Pixie5740 wrote: »
    I'm getting a strong sense of deja vu here.

    You want to surrender a fixed term AST early or have a deed of variation drawn up to change the names on the existing AST. You say there is an agreement that if you want to leave the tenancy early you simply need to find a new tenant. Is that actually written into the tenancy agreement? If so please quote the clause verbatim.

    It's not written into the tenancy agreement - but then, all sorts of daft things are written into the tenancy agreement. It was a verbal agreement, with the evidence of two previous joint tenants leaving in this way before (one before my time) meaning that I had no reason to doubt it.
    I think you literally need to be prepared to lose the £330 holding deposit because your actions have been premature. If you decide to stop paying rent and move back to your parents the landlord can pursue you through the courts for the outstanding rent and if you don't cough up have a CCJ awarded against you. Good luck finding a new rental with a CCJ and a dog.

    If he pursues me through the courts, surely the matter of loss mitigation would come up - that is, there's a duty to minimise the losses. In this case, I spoke to him saying that I was going to be moving out, I have provided replacement tenants, and he has chosen to do nothing about it. Surely, given that he raised no objections to me moving out, he has a duty to minimise his losses in the form of taking the tenants (which meet the criteria he set out) so that they will pay the rent instead?

    https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/5-107-6850?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&comp=pluk&bhcp=1

    I'll keep the rent money separate so I can pay up if he ever bothered to take me to court, so I could pay it off to avoid a CCJ, but seeing as he has explicitly said he can't be bothered to protect a deposit, and has never inspected the property in >2 years, I have my doubts that he would be bothered.

    The move is a long distance one, for work reasons, so it would also affect my employment. If you have any other bright ideas of getting the landlord to release me from an agreement when I have been most reasonable, please do enlighten me. At the moment, all I can see is me being trapped into a chain of overlapping 12 months ASTs when other tenants move in and out - so this would be a recurring issue. I'll note that, had my old flatmate not emigrated, I would now be out of the fixed term of my tenancy agreement.
  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Eighth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 24 September 2018 at 11:07AM
    What may have gone before is not evidence of what may come now. You signed a 12 month fixed term AST and you are bound by its terms. Have you checked the tenancy agreement to see if there is a break clause. If there isn't one then you have to negotiate an early surrender of the tenancy or a variation of the tenancy but the landlord has no legal obligation to agree to either.

    You didn't have to sign a new fixed term when your flatmate emigrated. The fixed term which started September 2017 could have had a deed of variation to change the names on the tenancy. Alternatively you could have signed a 6 month fixed term or requested a break clause in the 12 month fixed term. If you end up staying you could request one of the above.

    The landlord does not have any legal obligation to provide you with a reference. If that's what your new home is hinging on then you'll need to convince the letting agent it is not required, accept that they won't let the property to you, or continue to chase your landlord for a reference.
  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Eighth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic
    The landlord could mitigate his losses due to rent arrears by having the tenancy ended through the Section 8 route rather than holding out for the full fixed term.
  • A landlord (or agent..) does not have to give any reference, ever.

    Any more than a tenant has to give a reference for a landlord or agent (now there is a good idea..)
  • Pixie5740 wrote: »
    What may have gone before is not evidence of what may come now. You signed a 12 month fixed term AST and you are bound by its terms. Have you checked the tenancy agreement to see if there is a break clause. If there isn't one then you have to negotiate an early surrender of the tenancy or a variation of the tenancy but the landlord has no legal obligation to agree to either.

    You didn't have to sign a new fixed term when your flatmate emigrated. The fixed term which started September 2017 could have had a deed of variation to change the names on the tenancy. Alternatively you could have signed a 6 month fixed term or requested a break clause in the 12 month fixed term. If you end up staying you could request one of the above.

    The landlord does not have any legal obligation to provide you with a reference. If that's what your new home is hinging on then you'll need to convince the letting agent it is not required, accept that they won't let the property to you, or continue to chase your landlord for a reference.

    Unfortunately there's no break clause. The LL did, however, in an email state that he would consider a new tenant so long as they met his criteria. Subsequently, tenants were found that did meet his criteria.

    When my flatmate emigrated, I was told that the LL wouldn't do a deed of variation, as I suggested, and would only accept a new 12 month AST. I was then in an impossible situation where I was already bound to one AST (6 months in at that point), but was told I had to sign a new joint 12 month AST. I'm not sure what else I was meant to do - I couldn't walk away from the tenancy as I was still in the fixed term, and didn't want to move at that point, and needed a new flatmate to move in because the old one was on another continent, and having a new flatmate required me to sign a new 12 month AST.

    I've offered the new LA
    a) a reference from my previous LL
    b) a guarantor
    c) additional rent paid upfront

    I'm waiting to hear back if any are acceptable to them. They've also had a reference from my employer.

    I've spoken to other tenants of the same LL and while some have not tried to contact him in the last few weeks, others have had the same problem. I don't think that this is the LL fundamentally refusing to give a reference, I think that he's not responding to anyone at all. The LL's relatives (children?) help him to manage the properties, so even if he'd died I would have thought that they would be sorting this stuff out.
    The landlord could mitigate his losses due to rent arrears by having the tenancy ended through the Section 8 route rather than holding out for the full fixed term.

    That's the idea - to be evicted for not paying rent, because I don't want to live here any more. If I lose my next property, my plan would be to
    a) stop paying rent
    b) await section 8
    c) move out, back to parental home
    d) start looking for new property to rent, giving parents as my current landlords
    e) keep unpaid rent in a savings account, so that if I was taken to court I could pay then and there and avoid a CCJ or other harm to my credit rating - last I heard renting doesn't count towards your credit rating.
  • Pixie5740
    Pixie5740 Posts: 14,515 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Eighth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic
    You could have walked away from the previous tenancy. If the landlord had accepted an early surrender of the tenancy when your previous flatmate emigrated that would have ended the tenancy for all joint tenants. You could have moved out.

    In any case it sounds like you've got it all figured out. :beer:
  • Pixie5740 wrote: »
    You could have walked away from the previous tenancy. If the landlord had accepted an early surrender of the tenancy when your previous flatmate emigrated that would have ended the tenancy for all joint tenants. You could have moved out.

    In any case it sounds like you've got it all figured out. :beer:

    At that point in time, I didn't want to move - my employment situation has since changed, hence the reason for the move. I also had no way of anticipating the current situation.

    The tenancy wasn't surrendered at all - it was only agreed that someone new could come in (i.e. a replacement flatmate). The LL wouldn't have surrendered the tenancy at all if a new tenant had not been found. As with the current situation, he would only release the former flatmate from the tenancy once a new flatmate had been found - and had signed a joint 12 month AST with me.

    I was rather hoping that someone could check my proposed last resort course of action to see if I'm missing anything or if there is a better way to do it.
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