Served notice without valid Energy Certificate

mrkat

MaryNB said:

mrkat said:

AdrianC said:

FaceHead said:

You could just simply refuse to move out. As others have said it would take a couple of years and legal fees from this point for the landlord to get you out. You might as well stop paying rent in the meantime and you'll get a couple of years rent free.

You won't, because the landlord can still issue a court claim against you for the debt - any unpaid rent, any damages beyond deposit, any fees incurred in regaining possession.

And he will win.

Unless you have absolutely zero regard for your credit history, you will need to pay those debts plus the court fees.

We wouldn't not pay rent. We just don't want to leave completely by his terms when he has treated us so badly. We put up with a lot and always went above and beyond to make his life easier in the past when we were on good terms. Then he threatened us with eviction because a buyer suddenly wanted us to leave with 2 weeks notice. We just feel like now, we don't owe him or the buyer anything so want to do as much on our terms as possible.

If he does that again remind him that an eviction without a court order is criminal offence. 

He could have waited until you had found somewhere else to live to market the property. Or he could have reinstalled the roof insulation and marketed to another landlord so you could stay put. 
But he obviously didn't want to go without rent for a few months or to drop the price to sell with tenants in situ. The situation is entirely his own doing.

The buyer was naive to bid on a house with tenants in situ. In no circumstances can you get tennants out with two weeks notice. 

The buyer seems very naive to be honest - the house was marketed as 400k and he put in an offer of 385k which the landlord accepted. Then the independent valuation put it as £260k and he still wants to buy it at £385k! The LL was banking on someone falling in love with the house because it's an old country cottage with no neighbours and that's what he was lucky enough to get.

Little does the buyer know just how many problems the house has eg the shower is unusable, the living room floor flooded (which he didn't tell the buyer), the borehole/water filter needs replacing, among other things. At first the buyer said he was flexible with our move out date but then because of the lower valuation, he wanted to save some money before the stamp duty deadline which is why he gave the ultimatum that we needed to be out in 2 weeks.

They're both as bad as each other and, just because they have money and thought they had the power, they could scare us into doing what they said. I'm so thankful to have this forum. Without it, we probably would have moved hundreds of miles away and be staying in a dump for £1200 a month!

canaldumidi

Have you checked the S21 against the 81 questions here:

S21 checklist (Is a S21 valid?)

With an EPC of F, the LL could be prosecuted for letting the property. However no one is going to prosecute him if he's served a S21 and is attempting to cease letting the property!