Landlord charging to "register" Tenancy Agmt

longtimelurker54

Hi

I've owned a Buy to Let purpose built flat for more than 10 years.! When I first owned it the Landlords tried to charge me for permission to let my flat. A group of tenants took collective legal action against the landlord and won: they had to refund charges they had made to tenants for permission to let and weren't allowed to make tenants seek permission to let.

Haven't heard from them in 10 years, though they know my flat is BTL and they have my own contact details.!

Out of the blue they've sent a demand that all Tenancy Agreements must be "registered" with them, a copy provided & confirmation that no letting to Benefit tenants, students or asylum seekers. They've demanded a fee of £120 for registering.!!

Basically the request is identical to the one they made 10 years ago except this time they are saying it's not about "permission to let" but about "registering the tenancy" and they will provide a "formal registration document".

The clause in the lease they are relying on is below.

Does anyone know if this is legitimate?! The clause provides for registration of an "underlease".! Is a tenancy agreement an "underlease" under which I am granting an "interest" to my tenant?

The landlords want this information provided and the fee paid on every change of tenant.!

Would be grateful for any advice on this.! This landlord is known to overcharge generally for some things and my feeling this is only about further lining their pockets.

Many thanks!

Lease extract:

"Within 21 days next after any transfer, assignment, mortgage, underlease or devolution of the Demised Premises or any part thereof to give notice in writing of such transfer, assignment, mortgage, underlease or devolution and of the name and address of the transferee, assignee, mortgagee or other person in whom any interest in the Demised Premises is thereby vested to the Lessor or its solicitors and to pay them the fee of £25 (or such higher fee as the Lessor shall deem requisite) in respect of such transfer, assignment, mortgage, underlease or devolution."

Comms69

longtimelurker54 wrote: »

Hi

I've owned a Buy to Let purpose built flat for more than 10 years.! When I first owned it the Landlords tried to charge me for permission to let my flat. A group of tenants took collective legal action against the landlord and won: they had to refund charges they had made to tenants for permission to let and weren't allowed to make tenants seek permission to let. - Can you please be careful, you mean leaseholders and freeholders.

Haven't heard from them in 10 years, though they know my flat is BTL and they have my own contact details.!

Out of the blue they've sent a demand that all Tenancy Agreements must be "registered" with them, a copy provided & confirmation that no letting to Benefit tenants, students or asylum seekers. They've demanded a fee of £120 for registering.!! - Unless your lease says you must do this, then you can safely ignore it

Basically the request is identical to the one they made 10 years ago except this time they are saying it's not about "permission to let" but about "registering the tenancy" and they will provide a "formal registration document".

The clause in the lease they are relying on is below.

Does anyone know if this is legitimate?! The clause provides for registration of an "underlease".! Is a tenancy agreement an "underlease" under which I am granting an "interest" to my tenant? Yes

The landlords want this information provided and the fee paid on every change of tenant.! - The only issue is that you are providing your tenants personal information to a 3rd party, potentially without their permission. GDPR may be an issue

Would be grateful for any advice on this.! This landlord is known to overcharge generally for some things and my feeling this is only about further lining their pockets.

Many thanks!

Lease extract:

"Within 21 days next after any transfer, assignment, mortgage, underlease or devolution of the Demised Premises or any part thereof to give notice in writing of such transfer, assignment, mortgage, underlease or devolution and of the name and address of the transferee, assignee, mortgagee or other person in whom any interest in the Demised Premises is thereby vested to the Lessor or its solicitors and to pay them the fee of £25 (or such higher fee as the Lessor shall deem requisite) in respect of such transfer, assignment, mortgage, underlease or devolution."

Clause seems legitimate

stator

A clause that says "£25 or higher" is probably invalid, as they could ask for £1,000,000.

Offer them £25. Or £25 + CPI. This would probably be seen as reasonable by a court.

Wanderingpomm

There is nothing that says who you can and cannot rent to so tell them where to go on that. If you want to rent to students or people on benefits then you should. The majority make very good tenants.

Comms69

stator wrote: »

A clause that says "£25 or higher" is probably invalid, as they could ask for £1,000,000.

Offer them £25. Or £25 + CPI. This would probably be seen as reasonable by a court.

£25 - 10 years ago at least. and could be longer as the lease will probably relate to when it was first sold.

SouthLondonUser

Comms69 wrote: »

Can you please be careful, you mean leaseholders and freeholders

I understand your point, but, technically, and as reported in any leaseholder's contract, the freeholder is the landlord, and the leaseholder is the tenant, thanks to this anachronistic medieval heritage which is unheard of in the rest of the civilised world...

Comms69

SouthLondonUser wrote: »

I understand your point, but, technically, and as reported in any leaseholder's contract, the freeholder is the landlord, and the leaseholder is the tenant, thanks to this anachronistic medieval heritage which is unheard of in the rest of the civilised world...

I know technically it's correct - but it helps to differentiate as people on here may get confused.

ThePants999

SouthLondonUser wrote: »

I understand your point, but, technically, and as reported in any leaseholder's contract, the freeholder is the landlord, and the leaseholder is the tenant, thanks to this anachronistic medieval heritage which is unheard of in the rest of the civilised world...

You're right. However, if we were talking about three generations of men, it would be also be correct to refer to the elder two generations as "father" and "son" - while simultaneously being entirely unhelpful and actively misleading. If X is Y's landlord and Y is X's tenant, while simultaneously Y is Z's landlord and Z is Y's tenant, the word "landlord" is best avoided. "Freeholder", "leaseholder" and "tenant" are the best way to be clear on who you're talking about.

longtimelurker54

Hi

Many thanks for the helpful replies.

I'm still surprised that this clause in the lease which is obviously designed to capture sending a Notice when you transfer (sell) your property or remortgage it can be used to apply to an ordinary Assured Shorthold Tenancy.

The term "underlease" suggests to me a longer term underletting rather than an annual AST.

Does anyone know a definitive legal definition of "underlease".

Althugh the clause also includes the wording "or devolution" and "any interest". Would this be widely enough drafted to capture an Assured Shorthold Tenancy?

Are there any grounds for claiming that they have known I let out my property for more than 10 years and haven't ever pursued this before? (they write to me at a separate address to send bills for the ground rent etc and when I once had an escape of water claim under the buildings insurance policy they knew then the fact that I was letting as full disclosures were made about how the escape of water claim came about).

The lease says only to send "notice" of any "underlease or devolution" under which I grant "any interest". It says nothing about not letting to certain types of tenant nor to providing emergency contact details for my tenant to anyone else.

The lease also says the fee should be £25 fee or any fee that the leaseholder "deems requisite". This seems very unreasonable.

Please can anyone advise what steps I should take?

My concern is that this particular freeholder may charge for letters and if I dispute things with them I may find myself facing a large bill, but at the same time I fing their demands unreasonable and the wording of the lease open to interpretation as to whether it legitimately applies to ASTs.

Is it an option to say I will pay now and only send them a copy of the tenancy agreement (with my tenant;s name blocked out for GDPR reasons) but not to comply with their request to confirm I am not letting to the class of people they have prohibited and to pay the £120 fee but say I am disputing it and will take action to recover any excess.

What kind of legal action could I take with regard to an unfair clause or unfair fee?

Many thanks in advance.