please help eviction help

killahpriest666

45002 said:

killahpriest666 said:

the whole letter reads
dear Landlords name and some womens name 
" if you are residing in the property and are not the above named person please contact atkinson mcleod as a matter of urgency
we are advised by london bourough of tower hamlets that the property is being illegally sub let and is operating as a house of multiple occupants
unfortunately the legal owner of the property has no alternative but to serve you with the attatched notice under section 8 of the housing act 1988
this notice is to advise you that should you not give up possession of property by april 3 your landlord has given instructions to issue legal proceedings against you in t he county court for possession of the above propert, arrears of rent, interest and costs
we wish to advise you that apart from you having to give up possession of your home your name and adress may be entered onto the register of county court judgements if a court order is made against you

killahpriest666

Does the section 8 notice say which ground number they are using for a possession order ?

says grounds 12 - unauthorised sub letting of the property  - property being illegally operated as an HMO

killahpriest666

I've attached the letter if someone wants to check all the ins and outs of it

killahpriest666

sorry for the landscape lol

greatcrested

Ground 12 is discretionary, so assuming this goes to court before the new Regs comes into force, it is up to the judge to decide whether to grant possession or not.

The judge may look at the imminant new regulation and take the view he should be influenced by the government's clear intention, and refuse possession.

Or he may take the view that this matter is clearly unrelated to COVID-19, or tenants' loss of income, and grant possessionon that basis.

Who knows?

princeofpounds

Just bumping this one to follow up on a point of contention, about whether the OP should pay their rent or not.
The first thing to say is that the tenancy agreement between the OP and their immediate landlord is fully valid, despite the lack of permission from the head landlord. What their immediate landlord did is unlawful, but only in the sense that is breaks a contractual agreement between themselves and the head landlord, which is a civil law matter between the two of them. It is not breaking any laws, and is not illegal behaviour. It does not affect the OP's rights or obligations, except that when the head landlord seeks possession of the property through the courts and wins, the 'mesne' (middle) subtenancy automatically gets cancelled as well; the head landlord does not need to deal with the OP separately.

So, in theory, rent to the immediate landlord is still due, and will remain so. Normally, the advice would be that rent is a priority debt and should always be paid. But this may be one of those rare situations where it doesn't make sense to do so. The key sentence is this:
"the landlord has our deposits and we cant get hold of him we think he may have ran away etc.."
The immediate landlord also has liabilities to the OP and other tenants. The recoverability of these sums is in doubt, because the location of the landlord is unknown and the deposits seem not to be under a protection scheme. So to mitigate this, the OP can consider withholding rent to enable them to build up a new deposit to move on. In theory, the OP should not spend this rent until the statute of limitations has expired, but it seems unlikely that the landlord will pop up to claim it when they might get a counter-claim for deposit non-protection in return. If he does turn up, the OP can be ready pay him then and consider such further actions, without any penalty. 

brianposter

Once the OP has decided what to do it would be sensible to phone the agent and discuss the way forward in as cooperative way as possible.

Explain that you are intending to take advantage of the coronavirus legislation and, if necessary, will leave at your own convenience. However, if everyone is happy with the current situation, perhaps the landlord would like to apply for an HMO licence (with your support), or make some other arrangement.

killahpriest666

brianposter said:

Once the OP has decided what to do it would be sensible to phone the agent and discuss the way forward in as cooperative way as possible.

Explain that you are intending to take advantage of the coronavirus legislation and, if necessary, will leave at your own convenience. However, if everyone is happy with the current situation, perhaps the landlord would like to apply for an HMO licence (with your support), or make some other arrangement.

Emailed the estate agent... They're asking how many people living here and to send copies of tenancy agreements.... Our agreements all say lodger which would benefit them surely? So maybe is better to not reply now? 
Finding another place is easy... We have already put an offer forward for a flat... But it's not available til May 5th...andwe are just scared that we could be evicted before then? 

princeofpounds

Legally, the fact that the agreements say lodger does not matter. What matters is the real situation, which is that you had exclusive occupation (exclusive of the landlord in particular) and were paying rent.
However, agents are not legal experts. I wouldn't be surprised if this creates confusion on their part, or if they try to persuade you that you are just lodgers even if they know better. In addition, those contracts are between you and your landlord, not you and the head landlord, so it's not really any of their business. I would decline to give them over (or simply just not mention it). Personally I don't think there would be any harm in telling them how many people live there, unless there is some catch around HMO legislation (maybe other posters would know?). If you do, you should make it clear that the landlord was not one of them.

There is no way that you will be evicted by May 5th (short of the criminal act of illegal eviction, which is highly highly unlikely given the agent is the letter-writing type rather than the baseball-bat type). Even if there was no Covid-19 situation, the process takes multiple months. 

kdotdotdotdot

killahpriest666 said:

JayRitchie said:

killahpriest666 said:

if i were to say for example stay there for a month or 2 save up and get a new place....could the owner claim any unpaid rent from me for that time period legally? like obviously after i move some random letters adressed to me might still turn up there

Difficult one. You would need proper legal advice (so try not to spend the money). They are kicking you out as you dont have a contract with them - but if you don't have a contract with them how can they claim for rent?

letters with my name on would come after i move...so they would have my name so could possibly chase me up i dunno?

Don't worry about that. For about £30 you go to the post office and arrange to have all of your post automatically forwarded to your new address for three months. You can extend that to six months or even longer, I think.  

brianposter

killahpriest666 said:

Emailed the estate agent... They're asking how many people living here and to send copies of tenancy agreements.... Our agreements all say lodger which would benefit them surely? So maybe is better to not reply now? 
Finding another place is easy... We have already put an offer forward for a flat... But it's not available til May 5th...andwe are just scared that we could be evicted before then? 

If you have already found better accommodation you do not appear to have anything to worry about - simply tell the estate agent what is happening.

The only likely consideration is whether you are making things more difficult for the other tenants - you might discuss things with them before doing anything.