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Hi I've lived in this flat since January and have never even met the landlord let alone live with him though he is claiming I'm a lodger so he can evict me with shorter notice dodging the covid 19 legislation. What can I do. The contract is called a lodgers agreement but he doesn't love in the building I live in Bristol he lives in London. Help

Hi I've lived in this flat since January and have never even met the landlord let alone live with him though he is claiming I'm a lodger so he can evict me with shorter notice dodging the covid 19 legislation. What can I do. The contract is called a lodgers agreement but he doesn't love in the building I live in Bristol he lives in London. Help

Asking for a friend (honestly )... Said friend has been self-managing with very little background knowledge of how to do it. They have a tenant who is some four months in arrears and they want to get rid of them if possible. Is there a professional advisor out there who can help with them with what they need to do? I'm pretty sure they have registered the deposit but they may not have served all the statutory information required. I just don't know. They need an advisor who can find out what they have and haven't done, work out what the situation is and advise on the best way to proceed. Basically a trouble-shooter to hold their hand and get them out of the mess as efficiently as possible! And then they'll actually get an agent in to manage the property... Any recommendations gratefully received. Many thanks

Advice needed! I’m an experienced landlord with a few buy to lets and up until now I’ve had really good long term tenants. I’ve got 2 tenants that are 4 months into a 12 month agreement and currently going through a bad break up. They’re both telling us different stories about them wiping each other’s bank accounts so can’t afford to pay the rent. She’s saying he’s being investigated by the police and social services so cannot be contacted by him, nor reply to group emails. We don’t know what to believe but none is our concern. They’re over 2 weeks late with the rent and it doesn’t look like it’s coming any time soon. Neither will surrender their tenancy. She has asked to be evicted so she can get council housing but we are aware we cannot start that process until they’re 2 months late with rent or have broken a clause which we don’t believe they have. Has anyone been in this situation or can offer any advice on the steps we need to take next? Thanks

We bought a property at auction recently, and inherited a terrible tenant (LHA). He was in arrears before completion and still is (and has not started paying yet). He also appears to be smoking some illegal substances at the property. The property is a 1b flat in a converted house in Liverpool, and selective licensing applies. To apply for a licence, you need to provide a gas safety certificate - but the tenant is refusing access (pretending not to be home) so the gas engineer cannot enter to complete the gas safety check. Rent is £90 pw (around £390 pcm). His 6m original AST expired on 22 March, i.e. he is now on periodic. Eviction process under s8 or s21 is likely to cost around £1000-1200. It does not appear that the accelerated procedure under s21 is available due to various circumstances e.g. change in landlord mid-tenancy, no gas safety cert at first, etc. Being pragmatic, we are wondering: should we offer a cash sum (even a month's rent would be palatable) for him to leave and surrender his tenancy voluntarily? What are the risks of doing this? Would this jeopardise our chances of success if we offered this and he refused and we had to go to court? Or would we open ourselves to a potential claim for e.g. harassment, etc? Any help gratefully received!

Hi everyone. I am new to the forum and am seeking some advice from others who have been unfortunate enough to go through a similar experience as the one that I am having to deal with now. To provide a bit of background: I help my parents manage their property, which was let on a new AST to a family with 2 children starting end of Dec 2016. The tenants were current with rent the first 3 months, then several weeks late with rent the following 2 months and, as at today, owe my parents 5 months' rent. The tenants have lied about their financial affairs throughout, been evasive and non-contactable when our agents have tried to contact them and to compound it all, we found out by chance at the beginning of August (when there was already 3 months' rent outstanding) that both the husband and the wife had been declared bankrupt by another creditor. Our solicitor served a s.8 notice on the tenants when there was 2 months' rent outstanding and as this was still the case at the court hearing on 31 August, the judge granted my parents a possession order for the tenants to vacate the property by 15 September. The tenants did not attend the court hearing but we did and we notified the tenants, through our managing agent, of the judge's order. Due to the court's backlog, the court order was not issued and received by the tenants until 16 September, which is slightly ridiculous as this was the day after the tenants were meant to have vacated the property! Our solicitor did not receive a copy of the court order until 18 September. We applied for a bailiff appointment date on 18 September as the tenants had not vacated the property as required by the court order. However, on 19 September, our solicitor was informed by the court that the tenants had applied to extend the possession date on the basis that they had not been able to arrange alternative accommodation yet, did not received the court order until 16 September and had 2 children. Our solicitor submitted a letter of objection with various grounds on which we were opposing the tenants' application ahead of the second hearing on 28 September. At the second hearing, the judge unfortunately granted a conditional order, which was that the possession date would be extended to 12 October on the basis that the tenants pay a daily occupational charge commencing from the day after the date of the conditional order until the day the tenants actually vacate the property. To date, the tenants have not paid a single penny of the daily occupational charge. Our solicitor notified the court at the start of this week that the tenants had breached the terms of conditional order and we would like to make a bailiff appointment date but was told by a court clerk that the bailiff for the area was on annual leave until 13 October and no appointments could be made until his return as he was the sole bailiff. I find this completely farcical as my parents are now left without recourse and the tenants are making a mockery of the legal system and the conditional order, particularly as we have done everything by the book. We are going to be filing a complaint with the court but our solicitor has said there is nothing else we can do. Does anyone have any useful suggestions on how else we can expedite the eviction process? Any feedback based on similar experiences would also be welcome. Thank you.

Hi all, I just wanted to share this article by Lettings Barrister Michael Grant highlighting a gap in the Housing Act that doesn't allow for section 8 evictions if you issue a tenancy to collect the rent on a four weekly basis - in line with Housing Benefit payments. http://lettingsbarrister.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Gap-in-Housing-Act.pdf

Hi, Can a freeholder force a leaseholder to leave the property for disturbance/threatening behaviour. I am a freeholder of a property that is leased to another person who is causing disturbance in the building and threatening other residents. What rights do I have as I would like this person removed from the property. Any advice greatly received. Thanks Simeon

Hello there, Wanted some advice on my particular predicament. The situation is as follows: I currently have a 3 bed flat in Hackney which is let out to a housing association bringing in £1300 per month. The tenant currently residing in the property is a single mother with 6 children who has been in the property for almost 2 years. I realise that I could be getting a lot more by converting the flat into a 4 bed HMO. Similar flats in the same block are fetching £650 per room yielding a healthy £2600 gross monthly rent. I gave notice to the housing association 4 months ago informing them that I wish to take back my property. I was told that the tenant will only vacate the property once a suitable home has been found. I have not issued a formal section 21 notice and have been flexible in giving ample time for the tenant to find a new home given her circumstance. The question now is how much longer do I wait? It could be several more months until a 'suitable' home is found whilst I continue to wait. Do I proceed and go down the legal route ignoring the moral aspect of it? Or do I treat this as a business and detract feeling morally obligated to do the right thing by allowing the tenant to stay as long as possible? Advice and insight appreciated!

Hey everyone, looking for some advice Myself and my mum own two properties which are managed by a property management company. We've had them for nearly 5 years, and they've always been managed because we live in the South and the properties are in the North. Due to a recent change in circumstances, we're looking to sell both as my mum is currently struggling to pay her own mortgage and she's looking the recoup the investment made 5 years ago to pay off the remaining mortgage on her own home. Here's the issue... One of the properties has tennants in it and paying, so we're not too worried about this one just yet. But what can we do in terms of selling this one? Do we wait until the tenancy agreement is over and then we can put it on the market? The second one is a right pain, and the tennant hasn't paid money personally since July. It's all come from Housing Benefits, and the management company sent money up until November to cover the voids as they're then going to claim the housing benefits back. It's currently going to court as she's saying that she doesn't want to move out, and challenging the fact they cut her housing benefits because they were paying her too much... The property management company are saying they can't evict her, even though she's on a 6 months tenancy agreement, and that was up a couple of months ago. Although she has problems paying and a 16 year old, our situation isn't rosey either and we need to sell to raise money to pay our own mortgage. Are you property management company just dragging this out so we don't sell? Can we simply evict her ourselves and put the property on the market? We advised the property management company 15 months ago that we wanted to sell. They advised that selling isn't the best option so they would look to find investors to take over. Nothing has come from this. What route can we take to sort this out as soon as possible? I'm not really involved and trying to advise my mum on the situation. We lost our Dad 6 years ago and invested some of the inheritance into the two properties. Any additional information please let me know.

I watched Britains Benefit Tenants on channel 4 on Monday night (i dont know if this was a repeat). I took interest in the property agent who had served an eviction notice on older couple staying in property she managed. The couple had not left despite the notice and the agent went to visit them. She spoke to the camera before going to visit the tenants and said the approach she was going to take was not to get the baliffs in but to try and take the compassionate approach as wanted to avoid the tenants trashing the place before the baliffs arrived. she then proceeded over the next 3 months to go out her way to try and get the tenants a council flat to move into. She even mananged to convince a private landlord to take them on (which i though was a bit devious of her). But every time she came up with something for them they just dismissed her. After 5 months she went round and said to the couple this is the last chance but they didnt take it and she was going to the baliffs. what i took from this programme was not to mess about when it comes to evictions. If the tenants dont leave get the baliffs in. I know the couple in the programme where an extreme case but i dont think the softly, softly approach will work when evicting tenants. I have served one eviction notice in the past and the person left with no fuss. i have just recently served someone an eviction notice and i hope they go but after watching that programme i will be going for baliffs if this tenant dosent leave when she is supposed to. what approach do people have when dealing with evictions? thanks Matt