1977 Rent Act Tenancy - Nightmare Situation

GDB2222

Oh, I have just read @Woofiedog's other thread. 

The risk is that somewhere in the letters and emails enough information has been disclosed to satisfy S48. 

He has had lots of really good advice on the other thread. For example the post
24 February at 5:36PM 

MobileSaver

Woofiedog said:

TonyMMM said:

I think this was covered (at length) in a previous thread ...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6427849/1977-rent-act-tenancy-nightmare-situation/p1

Read the law. There is no rent arrears. The landlord is not entitled to get the rent until they serve a s.48.

What are you lot doing posting on landlord tenant issues when you have no idea of the law.

I am pretty sure that it is you who does not understand the law.

There is no such thing as a "proper legally binding s.48 change of landlord notice" or at least not in the way you think there is. The landlord simply has to supply you in writing with an address they can be contacted at... that's it!

If the landlord has done that then they have complied with Section 48 and you are completely in the wrong by withholding rent and are foolishly risking losing your Rent Act tenancy.

Woofiedog

GDB2222 said:

Woofiedog said:

TonyMMM said:

I think this was covered (at length) in a previous thread ...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6427849/1977-rent-act-tenancy-nightmare-situation/p1

Read the law. There is no rent arrears. The landlord is not entitled to get the rent until they serve a s.48.

What are you lot doing posting on landlord tenant issues when you have no idea of the law.

THE LAW

Is Section 48 an eviction notice?

Section 48 Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 provides that a landlord must "by notice" give the tenant an address in England or Wales where the tenant can serve notices upon the landlord. The penalty for failure is that no rent is payable until it is complied with.

Thanks. I was aware of the law, but couldn’t have given you the reference without doing a search.

Can I ask what the long term plan is? Sooner or later, the LL is going to get his ducks in a row. Or, he’ll sell it to someone else who is more organised. So, what do you want to achieve?

What I am trying to achieve is to

1.  Know who the immediate landlord is, for whom I can serve Notices including legal ones, should that ever be necessary to claim RROs. Sitting tenants are more vulnerable to harassment and health and safety failures due to underinvestment and becuase they don't pay market rent by law (only RCO maximum). The new owner bought through a limited company and has hired a Property Management company to do all of the interaction/rent collection and to instigate their own policies. The owner is just a shareholder and property purchaser. That means I know who the 'superior' landlord is, for whom I cannot claim RROs, and I know who is the agent. What I don't know is who the immediate landlord is - the one to send Notices including legal ones.

2.  Know whether the flat I am living in is rentable anyway. The owner bought blind and didn't even meet me or has visited the flat either. Neither has the agent from September when the flat was sold (which I didn't know was being sold until it already had been). The south facing window is entirely blocked off from the garden below (owned by my former landlord's daughter whose father tried to illegally evict me and failed many years ago owing me thousands in compo). That means the landlord - whoever that is - has no access to my south facing wall and so can't uphold the Landlord and Tenant Act to maintain the exterior to the property outside and inside whether leaseholders or not. If it turns out for it not to be rentable, due to this reason alone, is the landlord entitled to the rent anyway, irrespective of point 1?  This may be even more important with the EPC regs coming up that means the flat should become C banded (from E as it is presently). I tried to get that info out of the previous landlord - another corporate structure who at least only operated through one legal entity, making a s.48 not all that necessary in legal format as it was obvious which address legal notices should be served. This time I am dealing with two separate corporations not tied to each other legally.

All of this is worrying me silly now. I am not trying to keep the rent I am trying to keep my tenancy and my rights intact. But I am not capitulating to a vague contractual arrangement where I don't know who I am dealing with and if there are problems I am entitled to compo from further down the line, I have no clue who to serve Notices on. At present I have only one carbon monoxide metre and should have three, the steps to the front door are concrete and full of bubbles that one can twist their ankle on and there is no railing which makes it impossible to descend the steps safetly in winter when there is ice. As far as I am concerned, the new owner / agent stringing me along like this is stressing me out and that in itself is harassment for which I will make a counterclaim, should it be necessary.

What is more I am now exploring another avenue. The first landlord (who daughter owns the flat whose garden is blocking off my south window) gave me first refusal on the flat when he sold to my previous landlord but said I should pay a lot more than he actually did sell it for to the previous landlord. I have since found out that he had no right to sell to me for anymore he was willing to sell to a third party. So I am going to explore whether I can actually make a claim to buy the property outright using my savings I have accumulate, as this EPC nonsense is not going to go away it seems and I might end up being chucked out on those grounds alone if the flat can't be made up to a C. There is not a cat in hell's chance the flat could be made up to a C. It is an old converted Victorial draughty property with cavity walls, it is in two separate parts (the bathroom separate from the rest of the living space). So I am worried about homelessness too and am hardly a priority case with the council.

That is why I am annoyed with the stupid answers I am getting on this forum. I have no where to turn that is affordable and can deal with this issue. Shelter only deal with imminently homeless, Cit Advice can't help with complex matters and someone on my income can hardly afford £250 an hour for a landlord lawyer and there is no legal aid.

My aim is not maximise returns on the rent I have to pay by putting it through my pension to help offset the rent rises but not to risk my tenancy. That would be daft. But paying a landlord when I don't know who the landlord is won't happen either. I am within my rights to hold back the money until I do know.

housebuyer143

Your immediate landlord is the limited company. If the company address has been supplied then that's adequate.
If you are trying to pinpoint someone within the company who will take on personal liability as the landlord you are unlikely to find it - that being the nature of a limited company 

MattMattMattUK

Reading through this thread it seems like you are forcing an argument for arguments sake rather than any valid reason or legal grounds and I really cannot see this ending well for you. If you want a create a dispute for your own amusement there are ways to do that which have far fewer repercussions and costs than the path you have chosen here. 

elsien

Woofiedog said:

silvercar said:

You really are playing into your landlord’s hand. At some point they will take action for unpaid rent and you risk losing your tenancy. You say you are entitled to withhold rent and that may be true, but do you have the funds to defend this in court? I would think that you are risking a judge saying that your claim to be entitled to withhold funds is vexatious. 

Nonsense. The law is clear: if you don't know who your landlord is for whom all Notices should be served including legal ones, then I am entitled to keep the rent back until I do know.  That is the law around s.48s.

Those who disgree haven't a clue what the law is.

As soon as the Claim form hits the mat, I will then know who is liable won't I? Then I will simply pay the rent. By the time the Hearing date happens the Claimant will no longer have a claim but I will have a rock solid counterclaim for harassment, and the judge will force them to admit who is the immediate landlord.

I am a Rent Act tenants. I have no chance of losing my tenancy when I can prove that I have acted responsibly and put the money on time each month into a separate account and not used keeping back the rent to cover up another reason. Rent Act rent arrears are DISCRETIONARY not mandatory terms for repossession.

There are no rent arrears presently becuase the landlord is not owed rent until they honour their obligatoins to provide me with a s.48.

Read the law or don't post.

When you choose to post on a forum like this, you will get a variety of answers some on topic, some not, some accurate,  some not, some which sound plausible but you have no way of knowing the credentials of the person putting the information out there. And any number of tangents along the way. It’s the nature of the beast.

All you will do by putting comments like that out there is alienate the people who might know what they’re talking about.
It’s not a forum for legal advice. If that’s what you need, you probably need to pay for it from the relevant professionals.

Although if you are so sure you are right and everyone else is wrong I do wonder the purpose of your threads. 

Tiglet2

Where's @diystarter7 when you need him..........?

elsien

I’m sure he’ll be back in due course in one guise or another.

GDB2222

I’m a bit lost. How can a potential future difficulty over maintenance make your flat unrentable?  

Are there any current issues with the condition of the flat?

turnitround

Woofiedog said:

GDB2222 said:

Woofiedog said:

TonyMMM said:

I think this was covered (at length) in a previous thread ...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6427849/1977-rent-act-tenancy-nightmare-situation/p1

Read the law. There is no rent arrears. The landlord is not entitled to get the rent until they serve a s.48.

What are you lot doing posting on landlord tenant issues when you have no idea of the law.

THE LAW

Is Section 48 an eviction notice?

Section 48 Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 provides that a landlord must "by notice" give the tenant an address in England or Wales where the tenant can serve notices upon the landlord. The penalty for failure is that no rent is payable until it is complied with.

Thanks. I was aware of the law, but couldn’t have given you the reference without doing a search.

Can I ask what the long term plan is? Sooner or later, the LL is going to get his ducks in a row. Or, he’ll sell it to someone else who is more organised. So, what do you want to achieve?

What I am trying to achieve is to

1.  Know who the immediate landlord is, for whom I can serve Notices including legal ones, should that ever be necessary to claim RROs. Sitting tenants are more vulnerable to harassment and health and safety failures due to underinvestment and becuase they don't pay market rent by law (only RCO maximum). The new owner bought through a limited company and has hired a Property Management company to do all of the interaction/rent collection and to instigate their own policies. The owner is just a shareholder and property purchaser. That means I know who the 'superior' landlord is, for whom I cannot claim RROs, and I know who is the agent. What I don't know is who the immediate landlord is - the one to send Notices including legal ones.

2.  Know whether the flat I am living in is rentable anyway. The owner bought blind and didn't even meet me or has visited the flat either. Neither has the agent from September when the flat was sold (which I didn't know was being sold until it already had been). The south facing window is entirely blocked off from the garden below (owned by my former landlord's daughter whose father tried to illegally evict me and failed many years ago owing me thousands in compo). That means the landlord - whoever that is - has no access to my south facing wall and so can't uphold the Landlord and Tenant Act to maintain the exterior to the property outside and inside whether leaseholders or not. If it turns out for it not to be rentable, due to this reason alone, is the landlord entitled to the rent anyway, irrespective of point 1?  This may be even more important with the EPC regs coming up that means the flat should become C banded (from E as it is presently). I tried to get that info out of the previous landlord - another corporate structure who at least only operated through one legal entity, making a s.48 not all that necessary in legal format as it was obvious which address legal notices should be served. This time I am dealing with two separate corporations not tied to each other legally.

All of this is worrying me silly now. I am not trying to keep the rent I am trying to keep my tenancy and my rights intact. But I am not capitulating to a vague contractual arrangement where I don't know who I am dealing with and if there are problems I am entitled to compo from further down the line, I have no clue who to serve Notices on. At present I have only one carbon monoxide metre and should have three, the steps to the front door are concrete and full of bubbles that one can twist their ankle on and there is no railing which makes it impossible to descend the steps safetly in winter when there is ice. As far as I am concerned, the new owner / agent stringing me along like this is stressing me out and that in itself is harassment for which I will make a counterclaim, should it be necessary.

What is more I am now exploring another avenue. The first landlord (who daughter owns the flat whose garden is blocking off my south window) gave me first refusal on the flat when he sold to my previous landlord but said I should pay a lot more than he actually did sell it for to the previous landlord. I have since found out that he had no right to sell to me for anymore he was willing to sell to a third party. So I am going to explore whether I can actually make a claim to buy the property outright using my savings I have accumulate, as this EPC nonsense is not going to go away it seems and I might end up being chucked out on those grounds alone if the flat can't be made up to a C. There is not a cat in hell's chance the flat could be made up to a C. It is an old converted Victorial draughty property with cavity walls, it is in two separate parts (the bathroom separate from the rest of the living space). So I am worried about homelessness too and am hardly a priority case with the council.

That is why I am annoyed with the stupid answers I am getting on this forum. I have no where to turn that is affordable and can deal with this issue. Shelter only deal with imminently homeless, Cit Advice can't help with complex matters and someone on my income can hardly afford £250 an hour for a landlord lawyer and there is no legal aid.

My aim is not maximise returns on the rent I have to pay by putting it through my pension to help offset the rent rises but not to risk my tenancy. That would be daft. But paying a landlord when I don't know who the landlord is won't happen either. I am within my rights to hold back the money until I do know.

You have had some excellent advice and answers on your numerous threads regarding the same issues. You seen hellbent on being 'right' irrespective of what anyone tells you. Why carry on posting if you think you are getting stupid answers? It's also quite rude of you to be saying answers are stupid when people are just trying to help.