Covid - Am I protected from being evicted without an official tenancy?

MaryNB

mrkat said:

Well, it's gone sour rather quickly... he just emailed saying that things are serious now and that he will have to serve an eviction notice if we haven't secured a place by Sunday to force us out by the 15th. At this stage, we are going to tell him that the s21 is invalid and has to serve us a new one which means we will have here until October, hopefully there won't be any nasty surprises along the way. Thanks everyone for all the advice, this forum has helped so much! 

Just to make you aware, he cannot service you an eviction notice. Only a court can grant an eviction order. The landlord can only issue an S21 notice to quit which is him requesting that you leave the property by a certain date. Once that notice expires, then he can apply to a court and the court can issue an eviction notice. 

If he tries to force you out without an court ordered eviction that will constitute an illegal eviction which is a criminal offence. 

RAS

We are all assuming this is England or Wales?

Regardless, the landlord can't issue an eviction notice. Only the court can do that.

Once he's issued a valid S21 and that runs out, he can apply to the court to evict you. And join the long queue for a court date; quite possibly over a year.

He's a fool for marketing a property with a sitting tenant who hasn't given formal notice and his buyer's a fool for buying a property with a sitting tenant who hasn't given notice. 

"Dear ijit, we'd love to meet your demands but we can't find an alternative rental for love nor money. We haven't received any court papers regarding eviction; can you advise the date and location of the court?"

Don't bother telling him the S21 is invalid; wait for the court papers and then defend on those grounds.

Does the LL have keys to the house? If so, change the locks urgently and then replace them when you leave.

SpiderLegs

mrkat said:

Well, it's gone sour rather quickly... he just emailed saying that things are serious now and that he will have to serve an eviction notice if we haven't secured a place by Sunday to force us out by the 15th. At this stage, we are going to tell him that the s21 is invalid and has to serve us a new one which means we will have here until October, hopefully there won't be any nasty surprises along the way. Thanks everyone for all the advice, this forum has helped so much! 

I would advise having a discussion with your local constabulary, letting them know that you have been threatened with an illegal eviction.

oh and if you haven’t already done so, change the locks.

pinkshoes

mrkat said:

Well, it's gone sour rather quickly... he just emailed saying that things are serious now and that he will have to serve an eviction notice if we haven't secured a place by Sunday to force us out by the 15th. At this stage, we are going to tell him that the s21 is invalid and has to serve us a new one which means we will have here until October, hopefully there won't be any nasty surprises along the way. Thanks everyone for all the advice, this forum has helped so much! 

Your LL is clearly in panic mode and getting stroppy.

I suggest being super polite and calm, with an email/letter along the following lines:

Dear Landlord,

We appreciate that you would like us to leave the property by the 15th June so that your sale can complete, and we are doing our best to find alternative accommodation, but so far our search has been unsuccessful.

Legally, you needed to give us a 6 month eviction notice via an S21 which you did not do. The notice period is now 4 months instead of 6, so an eviction notice issued today would give us until October 2021. 

Perhaps you could help us by finding us suitable alternative accommodation to move into? We require <give details including budget>. We will also need our deposit of £X refunding in full to allow us to pay the deposit on the next property. 

Kind regards,

You.


Is there any accommodation out of your budget? Perhaps you could go for this and ask him to pay the excess for the 6 months tenancy??

You have the upper hand in this situation.

Robbo66

you must also bear in mind that you may need a reference from this landlord and should he go to court for possession you could be liable for his costs. Whilst you are in a strong legal position sometimes you are better off compromising so try and come to some sort pf agreement with your landlord.

Slithery

Robbo66 said:

you must also bear in mind that you may need a reference from this landlord

Surely it's in the LL's best interest to give them a glowing reference? The better it is the sooner they can get their property back.

Robbo66 said:

and should he go to court for possession you could be liable for his costs.

It will be at least 4 months before the LL can start court procedings. Presumably the OP will be out by then.

elsien

Robbo66 said:

you must also bear in mind that you may need a reference from this landlord and should he go to court for possession you could be liable for his costs. Whilst you are in a strong legal position sometimes you are better off compromising so try and come to some sort pf agreement with your landlord.

And just what compromise would you suggest given that they are trying their hardest to find somewhere with very little notice and their landlord is being an @rse? 

If you have any useful suggestions to move things forwards, now would be a good time. 

mrkat

Thanks again for everyone's replies. My only concern is that it has been clear in email that we were officially going to leave on May 15th and that he was allowing us to stay a little extra time while we finalised our move to Europe (which has now been postponed). He said we could safely pay for the month up until June 15th and then we would pay a day rate after that. He has been clear that we would have to move before the house buying contracts were signed and that's what we were also working towards before we knew how crazy the rental market had become. Despite the S21 not being valid, could this not work against us? To be honest, we are feeling bad that it's come to this when we agreed to be flexible and leave before the contracts were signed but we weren't expecting that to happen so quickly or the market to be so brutal right now. Though he has always said on the phone that he would give us 2 months and then he cut that short.

Regarding the changing of the keys... is this legal? We're pretty sure our original contract states that we're not allowed to so would this breach and void it? Also, our door is a safety door with an in built strip so I think we'd need someone specialized to change it.

Slithery

mrkat said:

My only concern is that it has been clear in email that we were officially going to leave on May 15th

Did you actually give notice that you were going to leave then or just agree to the landlords demand? Does your tenancy agreement state that email is a valid method of communication for serving notice?

mrkat said:

Regarding the changing of the keys... is this legal? We're pretty sure our original contract states that we're not allowed to so would this breach and void it? Also, our door is a safety door with an in built strip so I think we'd need someone specialized to change it.

Perfectly legal, changing the locks will in no way void your contract. In most cases you don't need to change the entire lock just swap out the barrel for a different one - usually less than a tenner from your local DIY store and 2 minutes of your time with a screwdriver. You can swap it back again when you leave. Youtube has loads of videos showing how to do it. Anyway, how will your LL know that you've changed them unless he tries to enter your home illegally?

RAS

mrkat said:

My only concern is that it has been clear in email that we were officially going to leave on May 15th and that he was allowing us to stay a little extra time while we finalised our move to Europe (which has now been postponed). He said we could safely pay for the month up until June 15th and then we would pay a day rate .......

Regarding the changing of the keys... is this legal? We're pretty sure our original contract states that we're not allowed to so would this breach and void it? Also, our door is a safety door with an in built strip so I think we'd need someone specialized to change it.

Did you ever give notice to the address given in your contract for the serving of notices, in the prescribed manner? Does your contract even specifically mention email as a form of communication?
Or did he advise you that you had to leave and you agree to do so unaware of your legal rights?

Exactly what was in the email exchange?

With regarding the locks, that is an old red herring. Of course you can change the locks. You must however return the house with the old locks in situ. As Slippery says, mainly you just need to change the barrels at a tenner a time, replace when you leave and you then take your new ones to secure your next tenancy.