Advice For Tenants

TheCatSitter

Thank you Grumiofoundation. I will try and answer all your questions clearly.

 We signed a 12 month contract. Expires late December.

We paid six months rent in advance. The next payment isn’t due until end of June which we were expecting to go to monthly payments at that point, however contract says another six month payment. LL has agreed to unofficially accept monthly payments from end of June, but not amend the contract.

Tenancy was done through a major agency.

We sent the letting agent £100 to his personal account by bank transfer.

Thank you x

[Deleted User]

This page from Shelter may be helpful - that £100 backhander definitely sounds dodgy and worth making trouble about!

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting/complaints_about_letting_agents

TheCatSitter

Thank you for the link. We did already complain to the branch manager. Also to head office and they just weren’t interested.

The agency definitely have a dislike for us. Emails are never polite, rarely answered and I’m sure they’ve most likely presented the landlord us in a poor light and not shared all information with them.

I feel like we’ve been let down from all angles, just cannot catch a break. On the letter we sent to the landlord we outlined all the facts about what we asked for when we rented the property, what we’ve done to improve their property and asked to reconsider at least providing us another one year.

Thank you all for the information you are providing us. X

moneysavinghero

Branch manager and head office are not going to be interested because they would prefer it to be kept swept under the carpet - they are in big problems if you report this to the regulators. Use this as leverage to get what you want if you need to

TheCatSitter

Yes that’s the impression we got MoneySavingHero too.

I will give the landlord more time to respond I guess before going on with any complaints. It’s just a shame if it ends up that this cannot be worked out between us.

Hopefully complaints may end up reimbursing our expenses, With a bit of luck we can stay longer / the landlord will work with us to give back the deposit in advance and expenses spent. Although we had an email from the agency saying the landlords were not happy that the house has been repainted professionally in a neutral colour and that permission should of been given before we did it. So I guess that gives some insight to what we may be dealing with.

I will update the thread when I have more information.

The advice has been greatly appreciated from all x.

JackAndJill

Sorry I may be missing the point here, however the owner is allowed to move back in there own property, no? Kind of not their issue what happens with you. Should of maybe not invested money in a property that isn’t your own and then you couldn’t face these problems 

TheCatSitter

Thanks JackAndJill,

We had agreed we would stay long term and the place wouldn’t of been nice to stay in as it was, hence making it nice for the family to stay in.

Bare in mind from the videos of the property we were sent none of these things were obvious.

Thanks for continued advice x

grumiofoundation

JackAndJill said:

Sorry I may be missing the point here, however the owner is allowed to move back in there own property, no? Kind of not their issue what happens with you. Should of maybe not invested money in a property that isn’t your own and then you couldn’t face these problems 

In your hurry to post a particularly unhelpful post the point you did miss is that little something called the law...

Even if you believe morally a landlord should have a right to move back into their property (someone else’s home) whenever we they want they don’t have the legal right to do so, therefore no point discussing. If they don’t like that, well no one forced them to become landlord did they?

rik111

JackAndJill said:

Sorry I may be missing the point here, however the owner is allowed to move back in there own property, no? Kind of not their issue what happens with you. Should of maybe not invested money in a property that isn’t your own and then you couldn’t face these problems 

They were promised a long term rental, so no they should keep to their promise. Legally yes they can move back once they give correct notice but does't make it right. You sound lovely by the way.....

macman

rik111 said:

JackAndJill said:

Sorry I may be missing the point here, however the owner is allowed to move back in there own property, no? Kind of not their issue what happens with you. Should of maybe not invested money in a property that isn’t your own and then you couldn’t face these problems 

They were promised a long term rental, so no they should keep to their promise. Legally yes they can move back once they give correct notice but does't make it right. You sound lovely by the way.....

No, they can't. If the tenant remains in occupation at the end of the notice period, as they are fully entitled to do if they wish, then the LL must apply for a possession order, which will add at least 6m to the process.