Renting - Landlord/Eviction issue

kjl26

Hi, I wonder if anyone has any advice on this - it's a bit long-winded, sorry!

Basically my partner and I rent the top floor of a house which is a separate self contained flat except that it shares the staircase with the rest of the house. It is actually a sublet in that the people who live in the house rent it from another landlord and let the flat to us.

Now, the legal situation as I understand it (checked on shelter.org) is that since we have an assured shorthold tenancy agreement with the intermediate tenant (the people who live downstairs) that makes us subtenants, with greater rights than lodgers, and the overall landlord the 'head landlord'. Among other things the head landlord doesn't have the legal right to enter the property without our permission, which he has done in the last week.

The main problem, however, is that the intermediate tenant sought permission to sublet only via email and phone from the head landlord, as the head landlord mainly resides in Australia. He is now back on a visit from Australia and has gone crazy and said that they never had permission to sublet and we have 7 days to move out or the intermediate tenant loses her £2000 deposit. Can he legally do this? We have an AST with the intermediate tenant that states a 2 month notice period is necessary. There is nothing about subletting, against or for, in their agreement with the head landlord, but they use hotmail and so have no email records of their agreements with the head landlord.

We are buying a place and hoping to move in 6 weeks time so hoping to apply a softly-softly approach till then, esp as the head landlord is going back to Oz on Tuesday (he does have an estate agent representative here tho), and just use delaying tactics.

Can anyone help with legal or general advice that might help strengthen our case, however?

Thanks!
Katie

zzzLazyDaisy

Dig your heels in, continue to pay your rent, and stay put.

You cannot be (legally) evicted without a court order. That is the case even if you had been given proper notice and it had expired...

By the time they get to court, you'll be gone anyway.

If/when you get the Notice to Quit (which they have to serve on you before starting proceedings) have a word with the agents/solicitor/whoever serves the notice and explain your plans. Chances are, they'll cooperate rather than throw money away on unnecessary court proceedings.

nrsql

Did you say that you expect to be gone in 6 weeks?
I'd be surprised if the landlord wasn't happy with that.

I would guess that your ast is invalid as the tenants didn't have the right to offer it.

The problem will be that your presence in the property will affect any insurance and mortgage the landlord has and may well cause him trouble.
Did the other tenants get specific permission to sublet to you or just agreement in principle that it might be ok - sounds like the latter and it was never confirmed. I would be surprised if the landlord wouldn't have informed the agent who would have sent out letters.

I would have also thought that your ast has no bearing on the contract between the landlord and tenant. He is probably within his rights to retain the deposit and the 7 days notice is immeterial. Your dealings are with the tenants (whether or not they have acted illegally) - don't worry about what the landlord says, that's the tenants problem. Losing their deposit is also their problem - they were taking a risk when they sublet and the point about risk is that sometimes you lose.

kjl26

Thanks for your views. nrsql, your point about the mortgage and insurance is interesting, I hadn't thought of that. There was a specific agreement between the landlord and intermediary tenant to sublet the flat to us, as there had been for the previous subtenants. Unfortunately there is no record of this so it is just their word against his. The landlord has I think just decided to turn nasty - he has been all around the house (including into our flat) opening drawers and cupboards etc. and lecturing the mother of the family downstairs about her cleaning (apparently it is 'disgusting', but as far as I can see it's a normal, lived-in, family home) - he's also decided to forget that he agreed she could redecorate a room (she's an interior designer, so it's pretty nice!) and has told her to get two professional redecoration quotes and pay for Laura Ashley wallpaper to be used (!!!) or else he will retain the deposit.

I think he's perhaps using intimidatory tactics - he knows she has been alone in the house for the last two weeks as her husband's away - in order to get them out sooner rather than later and sell the house?

Anyway, they have now agreed that we should be given a month to look for another place, and they are returning overseas tomorrow, so fingers crossed our house will go through in the next four weeks! I think you're right that the AST is invalid if the agreement to sublet cannot be proved, but then you are also right that that is nothing to do with us and any penalty/liability is the business of the tenant and the landlord.

Thanks very much.

nrsql

This all sounds a bit odd.
Usually overseas landlords leave everything to an agent and aren't that interested as long as the money turns up.
Sounds a bit like something has happened to upset him and he's taking it out on you.
Could be that the agents have screwed up somewhere, maybe a mortgage has gone wrong or he's just lost his job. Could need to get the capital out of the property in a hurry - in which case he's going about it the wrong way and at a very bad time.
Get him to post his details here and he'll probably get some very low cash offers which would include the tenants .