Renting- do we have any rights to stay a bit longer?

Owleyes00

lookstraightahead said:

grumiofoundation said:

lookstraightahead said:

user1977 said:

You don't have to go unless and until a court orders an eviction.

True but then you're unable to rent anywhere else.

What exactly do you mean by this?

Although I am in no way recommending doing this unless no other choice there is a common misconception, from both tenants and landlords, that staying past notice expiry date until landlord goes to court is in some way is 'illegal' or 'squatting' which isn't true - and your post could be taken to mean a tenant staying past the notice expiry is 'wrong'. 
For clarity for anyone reading not leaving when a section 21 notice expires (which you have no legal requirement to do so) does not automatically prevent you being able to rent anywhere else.

Obviously staying past expiry and forcing landlord to take you to court may result in you getting a poor reference from your landlord (which maybe is what you meant?) which could make it much harder to rent elsewhere (still doesn't inherently make you unable to rent elsewhere). 

I did mean a poor reference.

The tenant living in our house before we moved in was told by the letting agent she would effectively be blacklisted by all the local agents if she stayed past expiry. She left. On the last day.

Op as people say you absolutely do have the right to stay but it’s going to be stressful and unpleasant waiting for eviction and you do potentially run the risk of a bad reference and being liable for some of the court costs. Is it not possible to get someone less than ideal with a 6 month break clause and keep looking?

RAS

Any landlord who gives his tenant a poor reference for merely exercising their legal right is an idiot.

Not least as it is in the landlord's best interest if their tenant moves as soon as possible and scuppering a future tenancy really would be shooting themselves somewhere more important than in their foot.

GDB2222

1. There's a very long backlog before the case would be heard by the court. Around a year, I understand. 

2. Assuming the landlord gets an eviction order, he then has to book a date with the bailiffs, which can take another few months.

3. And, it's not automatic that he will get an eviction order, as there are loads of hoops the landlord needed to jump through. 

Apart from that, suppose that 3 or 4 months into this process you do find a place to move to, the landlord would be mad to give you a bad reference and spoil your chances of moving. 

I agree that the sensible thing  is to negotiate with the landlord for more time to move, but really you are negotiating from a position of very considerable strength. 

macman

OP: basics. You say you were 'contacted by the LL and given 4 months', but have you actually been served with an S21 yet? If not, then your notice period has not even begun, until formal notice has been given. A text, email or letter does not constitute giving notice, it has to be an S21.
It's also very likely that your tenancy is not fully regularised, in which case any S21 served is invalid until such time as the tenancy is regularised.
You asked what your rights are: the answer is that you can remain in the property until such time as the LL gains a possession order, which will be at least a year after your notice period ends. A LL cannot evict anyone, only a court can do that.

JohnBravo

RAS said:

Any landlord who gives his tenant a poor reference for merely exercising their legal right is an idiot.

Not least as it is in the landlord's best interest if their tenant moves as soon as possible and scuppering a future tenancy really would be shooting themselves somewhere more important than in their foot.

indeed if you are a landlord in a rush you want to provide the best references possible for the tenant. Besides I doubt a tenant carries grudges over to his/her new landlord to cause him/her troubles, it's on case by case basis.

JohnBravo

grumiofoundation said:

JohnBravo said:

A lot of tenants are taken by surprise by the landlords because they want to sell the property NOW FAST.
This is because the prices started to fall and they want to exit before it's too late but IMHO it's already late and not really a good time of the year (before Christmas) to sell properties. That is why you were a spot on tenant for 10 years paying off their mortgage but priorities have changed mid 2021.

It's still nice they gave you 4 months notice but the time is not that good to change place, the rents went up by 20% and you get a worse place for more.

Please check with the landlord if your deposit is registered with any of the deposit schemes.

If not then there is a red flag and that you could lose all the deposit at the end of the tenancy.
Mine didn't register it to save on the annual service fee (it says in the contract that landlord should do that).

This bit of information is important when you end your tenancy before you are about to pay the last rent.

It's not 'nice' they gave 4 months notice - it was the minimum notice required by law.

If deposit was not protected that would actually be a good thing for the OP
a) means Section 21 was invalid
b) means they* can sue the landlord for compensation and a court would be required to make the landlord pay a penalty of between 1x and 3x the deposit. As well as landlord being forced to protect it/pay it back.



*maybe you can too? If your ex-landlord didn't fulfil their legal obligations? (depending on when tenancy ended. 

Makes sense. My tenancy didn't end yet but my landlord mentioned 1-month notice.

At the moment tenancy is on a periodic basis but my provident landlord himself wants to end the contract with the agency, not sure what is he going to propose in the meantime (before the property is sold).

I am not in a combat mood to fight the landlord but I appreciate you pointing out the implications of such omissions.

This definitely can and should be used in negotiations.

rexmedorum

RAS said:

Any landlord who gives his tenant a poor reference for merely exercising their legal right is an idiot.

Not least as it is in the landlord's best interest if their tenant moves as soon as possible and scuppering a future tenancy really would be shooting themselves somewhere more important than in their foot.

Aah but question is: does the landlord realise this is the case? Saying they want to move "back in" themselves, makes me suspect they may be an accidental landlord with just the one property.

Have you changed the locks? I would definately do that if you do end up having to stay beyond the notice.

Of course it would be ideal if you could find somewhere else, maybe widen your search area.

MaryNB

JohnBravo said:

grumiofoundation said:

JohnBravo said:

A lot of tenants are taken by surprise by the landlords because they want to sell the property NOW FAST.
This is because the prices started to fall and they want to exit before it's too late but IMHO it's already late and not really a good time of the year (before Christmas) to sell properties. That is why you were a spot on tenant for 10 years paying off their mortgage but priorities have changed mid 2021.

It's still nice they gave you 4 months notice but the time is not that good to change place, the rents went up by 20% and you get a worse place for more.

Please check with the landlord if your deposit is registered with any of the deposit schemes.

If not then there is a red flag and that you could lose all the deposit at the end of the tenancy.
Mine didn't register it to save on the annual service fee (it says in the contract that landlord should do that).

This bit of information is important when you end your tenancy before you are about to pay the last rent.

It's not 'nice' they gave 4 months notice - it was the minimum notice required by law.

If deposit was not protected that would actually be a good thing for the OP
a) means Section 21 was invalid
b) means they* can sue the landlord for compensation and a court would be required to make the landlord pay a penalty of between 1x and 3x the deposit. As well as landlord being forced to protect it/pay it back.



*maybe you can too? If your ex-landlord didn't fulfil their legal obligations? (depending on when tenancy ended. 

Makes sense. My tenancy didn't end yet but my landlord mentioned 1-month notice.

At the moment tenancy is on a periodic basis but my provident landlord himself wants to end the contract with the agency, not sure what is he going to propose in the meantime (before the property is sold).

I am not in a combat mood to fight the landlord but I appreciate you pointing out the implications of such omissions.

This definitely can and should be used in negotiations.

The landlord by law has to give you two months (reduced from four to two since the start of October). And that's not an eviction notice, that's just a notice saying "please leave by this date or I'll go to court to get an eviction notice". You still remain a tenant after the S21 notice. Although as grumiofoundation mentioned, he can't even use an S21 because he hasn't protected the deposit. 

You only have to give a month's notice notice if it's a statutory periodic tenancy. More if a longer notice period is mentioned in the tenancy (contractual period tenancy).

Make sure you read up on all your rights as a tenant. Your landlord can't be bothered to adhere to the law so you need to make sure he doesn't continue to infringe on your rights. 

namieco

Thanks all.

The deposit is protected, it was initially done by an agent before the landlord took over personally. 

They gave us the S21 end of August.

We will ask them for an extension and keep looking and hoping. If things get awkward we might need to do a sort of polite 'sorry but we have to stay a bit longer as we can't find anywhere so if you have do an eviction notice we understand, we will still try to move out' kind of deal.

In reference to buying, we don't have a deposit yet, it's hard. Hopefully in 2 years time. So until then we need to continue renting. 

macman

As I pointed out before, a LL cannot issue an eviction notice, they can only apply for a possession order once your notice term has expired. The court decides. With the current court backlog, that will take them a year at least, even assuming the tenancy is regularised in every respect, which few are.
You don't have to ask them for anything or tell them anything, just continue to pay your rent on schedule. Alternatively, you can ask them to incentivise you to move out sooner, either by financial assistance, or by using their contacts to find you another rental.