Landlord wants to remove Utility bills from Rent.

sparky.shark

A friend of mine has asked me whether the landlord can do this? I said I don't know but I know the place to ask! :money:

Basically there are 3 tenants in a shared house, all bills are currently included, from water right through to the internet.

The Landlord has raised some concerns regarding the high usage of electricity and Gas. They all pay a monthly rent, not weekly, and are generally happy with everything. Although one thing I was surprised to hear was that they have no contract in place between all three.

So can the Landlord ask them to pay the entire gas/electric bill? Does my friend have any say over it. They have a meeting at the weekend.

Cheers!

Old_Git

if my landlord had being paying my gas & electric I would have everything on 24 /7 .

zzzLazyDaisy

Check the tenancy agreement.

It might not say anything about changing the terms re utility bills, but it will have a provision for termination of the tenancy.

If agreement can't be reached, the landlord will probably terminate the tenancy and offer a new tenancy on new terms

Edit - of course the original rent would have been set to reflect the inclusion of bills and so will probably be higher than market rents for the area. It is worth checking with a local estate agent what are the rents for similar places with no utilities included

PasturesNew

This is the thing, include bills or not.

If you include bills then people won't have a respect for usage.
If you exclude bills then the problem is transferred to the tenants to kick the 4rse of the one leaving the heating/lights on etc. But there's the risk of somebody leaving without paying their share, or refusing to pay etc etc.

If it's included in the rent then it would be hard for the LL to change the contract to exclude them. Certainly he'd need to drop the rent price.

However, their current contracts would state inclusive I guess. Do they all have a contract running to the same rent day?

sparky.shark

I asked about the contract/tenant agreement. There is none between the tenants and the landlord.

That can’t be right can it? Surely both the landlord and tenants could do anything they want...

kazwookie

I shared a house many year ago with 2 others, and we put each month £20 or so into another account which the 3 of us had opened and we all had to sign for, to pay our bills as they came it, this worked well.

I know now it might be different but would be interest to hear what others do.

zzzLazyDaisy

sparky.shark wrote: »

I asked about the contract/tenant agreement. There is none between the tenants and the landlord.

That can’t be right can it? Surely both the landlord and tenants could do anything they want...

Could you clarify a few points, please as the law varies depending on their status...


Are they students? Does the landlord live on the premises? If so they are lodgers not tenants. If not, and they have no tenancy agreement, the landlord is potentially in deep doo doo.

sparky.shark

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Could you clarify a few points, please as the law varies depending on their status...


Are they students? Does the landlord live on the premises? If so they are lodgers not tenants. If not, and they have no tenancy agreement, the landlord is potentially in deep doo doo.

No agreement of any kind. I presume thats good for him then.

Forgot to mention no landlord on the premises.

olly300

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

If not, and they have no tenancy agreement, the landlord is potentially in deep doo doo.

Utter rubbish!

If you are in England and Wales and you pay someone money like rent, and that person accepts it as rent then you have a tenancy contract.

If the landlord doesn't live on the premised and the premises is not linked to a job then the tenancy is likely to be an assured shorthold contract.

Baiscally if the landlord wants to change the agreement if the tenants have lived there more than 6 months he needs to give them written notice that he wants to change the tenancy agreement. If they are students and they have agreed to rent the property for a year then the landlord can't increase the rent until after that year.

BTW I've had verbal tenancies before.

tbs624

Agree with Olly. A Tenancy Agreement *can* be a verbal one, although Tenants have the right to ask for a written Statement of the Terms and such a request must be complied within either 28 days (or it may be 21 days - can't recall offhand).

As Olly says if rent has been paid there is a valid legal agreement: it could however be either a licence to occupy or a tenancy. Although certain key rights and obligations would be preserved, the problem for either side is that without anything in writing it's hard to prove what the original terms of the Agreement were.

It could of course be the case that the LL was seeking to avoid HMRC, mortagor notification or deposit regulations by keeping it all verbal?

zzzLazyDaisy

I am not disputing the fact that you can have a verbal tenancy. [edited as this part contained out of date information, apologies to OP and thanks to tbs624]

On the other hand, if the landlord lives on the premises, they are lodgers on a bare licence (unless they have completely self contained accommodation) with no security of tenure and can be evicted with no notice at all.

I suggest that the tenants contact Shelter

http://england.shelter.org.uk/advice/index.cfm

They are not just there for homeless people, but will give expert advice on all aspects of housing problems.

Also the tenants may be able to apply to the Rent Assessment Committee, but this must be done within three months of receiving the landlord's written notice to increase or vary the rent.