AIBU to be absolutely shocked at my friend attitude towards her landlord and her not want to move out ???

[SpikeHairandFab]

Hi, I just need to get some perception ,sorry ,I am afraid it is going to be long
My friend is buying house, she has wasted almost 5 months waiting for her dream house but she didn't get it at the end ( due to some massive muck up from vendor side, not her fault) . Now she is in process to buy a new house. Everything is o.k with this one ,she will move in at the end of June.
The problem is her landlord has served her a notice to vacate the house . It was served in Jan ,and her last day should be 24th of May. But she saying she will not move out, she will stay 5-6 weeks longer, even though her landlord sold the house he is living in now, and he want to move to the house she is renting from him.
I tried to explain to her that she really need to move out,as it is not fair on her LL , that he has given her enough time to sort something out ,and that the Law is on his side , but she saying she has nowhere to go, and she can't rent anything short term ,as it is going to be expensive. She also saying that he will have to get her to court , and that will buy her around month or so, she thinks there will be no consequence at all , she will go when she is ready , and she doesn't give a sh@t about her LL. Also she said she will stop paying him rent from 25th May , as he getting her to court !!!! I this point my jaw just dropped to the floor
I know she has 3 kids and therefore a lots of stuff , but it seems like she is trying to get advantage (not paying rent) out of this whole nasty situation.
I am really trying hard not to be judgy ,but I can't help, she is in very tough situation but I think she should at least try to do something.

Is she right that there will not be any consequence at all? She said she was reading some forum and that she got that info out from it.

She is my very good friend and even though I don't like what she's doing ,I really need to help her(not that she asked for any help). I have offered her to borrow some money , but now I am more concerned about what she is getting herself and her family in to by not moving out.
Will she get any record ?
Any advice would be highly appreciate .
Thank you for reading

ballinacup - you are utterly bonkers! How on earth do you cope with such an enormous chip on your shoulder?

bitter the LL hasn't been 'reckless & utterly foolish', he has given the tennant 5 months notice that she needs to move out. SHE is the one causing the problem here, not him.

It is his property, he has given more than adequate notice that he wants it back - the problem here is this woman (& many others on this thread) have no morals.

oops. wrong quote. i meant.

The tenant has not received "a legal order to leave". The Section 21 is a NOTICE. And that notice informs the tenant that the landlord intends to have the tenancy ended by the court. Only the tenant or a court can bring a tenancy to an end despite what the landlord might want or need. By staying 4 to 6 weeks after the notice expires means the tenant is not doing anything illegal.

I don't what you mean by "illegal". do you mean criminal? I am not a so

From the gov's website

"Section 21 gives a landlord an automatic right of possession without having to give any grounds (reasons) once the fixed term has expired"

Bitter, that is utterly bizarre logic!

Of course he assumed the property would be vacant, because they both had an agreement, he gave her loads of notice (more than required, I'd imagine, I never had a 4 month notice period) and, most importantly, he hadn't presumed she would be a cunt.

Bitter not always as simple as that as it depends on the judge. My DP is a professional LL and has had a couple of cases where the judge has ruled in favour of the tenant having longer to vacate the property (even though all paperwork was filled out correctly) because he had sympathies with the tenant (they introduced new evidence at the court that my DP wasn't aware of - and had they told him sooner, he may well have been totally sympathetic).

The rules are there for judges to follow but they do have powers to overrule the rules.

OP's friend is buying a house. If she wants to sell one day, she will have to move out on the agreed date, even if she has to go into rented, B&B or even a hotel for a few days or weeks.

When you sell a house you cannot just decide to stay put because it suits you. The same should apply to renting. If you agree a fixed term and you agree the notice period, then you should stick to it.

The only decent alternative is to speak to the LL, explain your position and ask if you can stay for a further six weeks. Anything else is pretty low behaviour.

I'm not sure, in fact, if you did sell your house whether you could be evicted on the moving day if you failed to move out.

I expect it's much the same thing.

It is the same thing Aga. Imagine you are moving house and on moving in day you turn up to move in and the vendors tell you, "Sorry we're staying put for another 5 to 6 weeks because the house we are buying has not completed yet. You'll have to find somewhere else to live until we're ready to move out".

This situation is no different. The LL needs to move into the property. He gave notice which the tenant accepted. She is not going to tell him that she's not moving out, so he will turn up on the day expecting to repossess his property and she will just refuse to move out.

Where is the LL and family supposed to go?

Yeah, if that happened there'd be fuck all you could do about it, you'd have to find somewhere else to live until they decided to move out.

Actually Aga if a seller did that the contract for the sale will provide for damages. So seller could be liable to reimburse all costs incurred by the buyer due to sellers' s breach of contract. (Certainly in Scotland as we don't have "subject to contract" and buyers and sellers not being in a contract until the last minute)Buyer would be entitled after a reasonable period, which will be less than 6 weeks, to pull out of the contract so seller can stay on as long as they want as their sale will have fallen through.

On the effect of a section 21 Notice this is broadly the same as a section 33 Notice coupled with a notice to quit. The tenancy , assuming it was a valid SAT, doesn't continue until there is a court decree. The tenancy is ended by the 2 notices. The tenant, if she chooses not to leave, is protected from being removed without a court decree. The court process isn't intended to give tenants an automatic extension. There may be cases where notices weren't served properly and court won't issue decree but if everything was in order and decree issued the landlord can ask for damages for tenant's breach.

Might be different in England but a section 33 Notice needs 2 months' notice but there's no reason why longer notice can't be given.

I think in England the LL would have a good case to claim back his expenses. OP's friend is being very silly because she might have to pay his hotel and storage costs.

No, she won't have to pay his hotel and storage costs. The landlord cannot and could not be assured that the tenant would leave until she gave him formal, written notice. She hasn't done that so her tenancy continues. And will continue until a court ends it if she doesn't do it first.

All this nonsense about a numpty landlord making dangerous assumptions. I wouldn't make arrangements to sell a house and move into the once-tenanted one until and unless I knew it was vacant from the evidence of my own eyes. This landlord is a fool

I wouldn't have made arrangements which would only work if she kept to her side of the contract. She should not assume that not keeping her side of the contract has no consequences.

However calling the landlord a numpty and a fool is a bit much. Most of civil commercial law would fall apart if parties didn't assume that generally having entered into a contract they will stick to it. Of course people can end up in court but usually because there is disagreement about what the contract meant rather and whether the parties have done what they were supposed to. Here it's just one party deciding to ignore it.

Hmm I suggest she pays the rent, a prospective mortgage lender will retract a mortgage offer if she gets bad credit. If for any reason they relook at her case, ask for a bankstatement, realise the rent is unpaid that could mean her dream house is no longer hers. If this happens post exchange (it does happen) then the offer of loan can be retracted, meaning her 10% deposit is lost. Very poor decision to not pay.

Landlords get such a beating don't they? God forbid they'd want their own property back at some point.

You're friend is being completely unreasonable.

I am worried about the ultimate outcome for your friend. As a LL, I would be taking a civil action against your friend for damages if she didn't move out at the end of the tenancy (regardless of whether she continued to pay the rent). The damages would be equal to the amount extra that it cost me not being able to move back in when I should have been able to - probably a hotel for 3 weeks, or a serviced apartment large enough for me and my family. I would also claim costs against her (ie she would have to pay my legal fees if the claim is in an amount greater than the small claims limit, and the court fees). I would def take action knowing that the friend was buying a house and so had an asset against which I could enforce payment. This will cost her in the long run. She is right that she cannot be physically evicted without a court order but this does not mean that she will get away without paying the price for her serious contractual breach.

The LL is not a numpty relying on someone being honest enough to stick to their end of a contract. The world would come to a halt if people could not reasonably rely on other parties sticking to contracts.

Aga as Caitlin has pointed out, when you sell a house or flat you do so with vacant possession, which you contract to do. Failing to give vacant possession when the time to move comes will result in being sued by the purchaser.

There is no "serious contractual breach"!

The tenancy has not ended. Only the tenant or a court can bring the tenancy to an end. The landlord in this particular instance has based his decision to sell and move into the tenanted property upon an assumption. Which is proven to be incorrect. The only party to suffer will be the landlord.

Tenants have few protections in law and can be evicted for any reason or no reason at all. But landlords need to abide by the LL & Tenant legislation if they want to regain possession. The landlord in question has not done so. Therefore he is a fool and a reckless one at that.

Because of people like this twonk of a woman, there is a growing trend for landlords to use the biding system, when choosing tenants,

In this area there are a lack of rental properties, so when a place comes up for rent, people bid in months of rent in advance,

to get a house you have to have a very large deposit, and at least a year in advance rent, then six months before the rent in advance is up, the bids open up again, unless the tenant puts in at least another six months rent, the larger the over lap, the more chance of getting a property.

This means that unless you have quite a large amount of money saved up, you cannot get a decent secure rental property.

Anyway the one good thing is OP, at least you now know what sort of person this woman is.

If he had lined up another tenant with a non-negotiable move in date (like, duh, the way it normally is) this would be a non story and the OP's friend would be being told to get a grip and get on with it.

But it isn't the way it normally is, is it? Why would a landlord evict a perfectly good tenant only to get another one in? If tenant wants to stay, he's better off keeping that tenant. If he wants to evict the tenant because they're not 'perfectly good' he would be a total idiot to line up another tenant with a non-negotiable moving in date, precisely because he must know that he can't guarantee that date and he would then end up paying the new tenant's hotel costs.

Presumably the LL has keys to the property. Maybe he and his family should move in alongside OP's friend? Might be a bit of a squeeze but if the friend doesn't like it...

Well, he could do that, of course. If he fancies paying hefty damages for harrassment.

Just to reiterate something that was said at the beginning of the thread, although this is a vile thing to do to a LL, by vacating before a court order has been obtained and bailiffs arrive, tenants will be classed as making themselves voluntarily homeless if they leave.

This would mean they would not be eligible for access to social housing, which is the only option some tenants have on being served with notice.

I know that isn't the case in this instance, but people should keep in mind that sometimes tenants have little choice themselves but to stay.

When I was with XH, he would continually drink the rent money (I usually paid all rent and bills but was on maternity leave, and is one of the many reasons he's now an Ex!), so while I was begging and borrowing money to pay back rent, I did look into what would happen in the worst case scenario and we were evicted.

I was horrified to discover that I would have to stay past the notice, be taken to court and evicted by bailiffs before I would qualify for help. I couldn't believe that people trying to leave according to the notice given by the LL would be penalised for it. But they were, and I believe Councils and CAB will advise tenants to stay put if they want to access social housing.

As a LL, I would be taking a civil action against your friend for damages if she didn't move out at the end of the tenancy (regardless of whether she continued to pay the rent). The damages would be equal to the amount extra that it cost me not being able to move back in when I should have been able to - probably a hotel for 3 weeks, or a serviced apartment large enough for me and my family. I would also claim costs against her (ie she would have to pay my legal fees if the claim is in an amount greater than the small claims limit, and the court fees).

Again, you could do that if you want to do your own lawyers and hers a massive favour, because you'd end up paying her costs. You can only claim damages for breach of contract if they are a direct consequence of that breach, and if you have mitigated your losses. Since it is a basic legal principle that the tenancy can only be ended by the tenant or the court, and you would not have been told by the tenant that she is moving out, you would be taken to have known that there was no guarantee and that you might not be able to get possession for several weeks. A judge would have to find that the losses were self-inflicted.

of course tenants who act like this increase the costs for landlords who will ultimately put the costs back on to the general population of renters.

I am surprise anyone has sympathy for the woman in the OP. she is no better than someone engaged in insurance fraud.

It is not a "legal concept" that a tenancy can only be ended by a court. Provided tenancy was set up correctly and the relevant notices were served the tenancy ends on the contractual date.

What continues is the tenant's right to be protected from being manhandled out by the landlord without a court decree. That is(a)to protect the tenant from physical harm and(b) to give the tenant the right to have the termination notices and processes reviewed by the court.
There might have been a flaw in the notices; the lease might not have been set up correctly as an AST/SAT in the first place. If there was a flaw in any of these the tenancy has not ended and the court will not order it has.If the flaw related to the notices the landlord will have to start again with correct notice; if the flaw was in the type of lease the landlord has set up a secure tenancy by mistake, he's stuck with it.

If lease and the notices were correctly created and served the court grants its authority for removal of the tenant, not the ending of the tenancy.