to think two months notice is a bit shit?

[Miren]

Just heard from a friend that her landlord has given her two months notice to vacate the property she has been renting for the last 5 years. It's come completely out of the blue, and she is so upset. She has 3 children, all in the local school, so, unless she moves schools, she has to find - a scarce - rental in the area, pack up and move, in 8 weeks. She took on the property on the understanding that it was long term enough to see the kids through first school. So sad for her.

like what? All these are issues that friends have told me about. Some of it will depend on the terms your landlord has personally set.

In what way Dia? That all reflects my experience pretty well.

I would like to see licensing brought in for private rentals.

Too many of the wrong people are now landlords. Some have no clue what they are doing. Take my neighbour for example. He buys up all the cheap houses in the next town to us, he must have over 50+ easily. He does nothing to them and if something goes wrong he bodges it.

He charges a bomb for small, run down terraced houses and will only rent them out to dss.
It's wrong, wrong, wrong!

A home is to nest, not to invest.

Where I live landlords have to register with the council, put the deposit in a protected scheme, and the house has to have a fitness inspection if it's older than 1940s. Is that customary across the UK?

- you never own it so have to pay rent for ever
You only pay rent for as long as you rent. That isnt always forever
*- you get stuck with the manky carpets your landlord put in, ditto washing machine that needs replacing but he insists on mending.

• you have to get permission to redecorate/ put up a picture
• you can't make it your own*

Not always- i brought my own appliances and have been able to replace carpets and decorate to my own taste. you have to put up with extortionate fees every time the letting agency send you a letter. I've never been charged a fee for a letter. - you have to put up with them coming round to 'inspect' when they feel like it. You dont. You are under no legal obligation to permit any access regardless of what the contract says.

I am aware that in your latest post you did say "Some of it will depend on the terms your landlord has personally set." However this was after my response to your first post in which you said "The disadvantages of private renting are far more lengthy than owning:" which implied you meant tese were across the board in private rental.

Yanbu to think that it is a shit situation for your friend, having to move when it doesn't suit you and with children and schools to take into account is very difficult. Sadly, that is how it goes with renting. We rent and I hate it. However, the landlord has not been really been 'shit' in that he has only done what he has every right to do, and it could be for any number of valid reasons. Equally if she or her DH had lost their jobs and found work at the other end of the country they could have given notice and could not have been forced to stay or keep paying for a house they can't live in. She could contact him (address should be on contract) and politely ask if there is any flexibility, but don't push anything or refuse viewings. All that will do is mean she ends up with a bad reference and finds it harder to get anything else. If there is flexibility then it gives her a while to find somewhere else, but bear in mind-

-most places come up within two months or less of becoming available, and if none come up within her price range in that time then the chances of them coming up in the following months aren't great. I agree with a pp it sounds like she has been paying below market rate.

• if the LL did agree to postpone, then she does find somewhere she likes but it is available immediately, she would have to give notice herself and be paying double rent.
• the above could happen even now, if so then it would be fair to ask the LL if he would advertise their current property as available immediately, and only charge her rent till he has a new tenant. I don't think he is obliged to/don't know, but he might.

I sympathise, it is horrid, but it's how it is and the problems with housing right now in the Uk go way beyond what this landlord does.

CAB/LA housing advice will both advise sitting tight until the LL goes to court - standard advice, the LA is only obliged to offer assistance if a number of conditions are met; one of which is that you are 'threatened with homelessness within 28 days' - that is not the case until the LL has been to court, been awarded a possession order, and a date for eviction.

As far as I know, she won't be blacklisted or her credit affected by this as a S21 notice on an AST tenancy is a 'no fault' ground for possession. The LL may not be keen on giving a ref, but he can only stick to facts; which are that your friend always paid the rent on time, and kept the property in good order.

IF, she is entitled to assistance from the LA (she would also have to satisfy the following conditions; have a local connection with the area, and be vulnerable - having children will count, she would also have to satisfy any financial criteria they may have, e.g. Earn under a certain amount, or have less than a certain amount in savings), she could well end up in a hostel or B&B for months or even years, while she waits for a suitable property.

It is a rubbish situation to be in, however, if she sticks it out, she could end up with a council/HA property, which would offer her and her family real security of tenure.

Can stating the facts include making a reference to tenant overstaying notice? If so, why would the next LL take that on (if council or HA property do not materialise)?

People who are recommending the tenant 'sits tight', you are suggesting she continues to pay rent during this time, aren't you?

Not sure where the idea private LL's make a huge amount of profit comes from.

My dp is a private landlord, profit very minor. It was just the quickest way to free up money so we could buy a property together. Renting to friends of mine, obviously the relationship is different to a normal private LL/tenant. If we were planning on selling the property we would mention it significantly prior to serving a notice.

It is understood by the tenants that the property will be sold eventually. If they choose to leave the property prior to gearing up to sell, it will be sold anyway. It won't be rented to entirely unknown tenants. I've heard far too many horror stories (both anecodal and through work) to even consider it.

womb, one of our families was told by the council that they would stop paying HB once the "eviction date" arrived.

Then I spoke to Shelter and they said because the tenancy would not have been terminated unless the court had made their decision, the council must continue paying the HB. However, it's not clear whether this is legally enforceable.

Obviously different from non-HB cases, but my piont is that even if a tenant in receipt of HB wanted to go to court and continue to pay their rent until the court case was decided, the council might scupper their plans if they stopped paying HB.

Private landlords can give whatever sort of reference they like - which could include the fact they thought the tenant was a pain in the neck, or deliberately obstructive and certainly would include the fact that they had to go to court to evict them. Most references are done by phone anyway. The Landlord Referencing Services database also includes tenants that the LL has had to go to court to evict (it is also a database of good tenants incidentally).

So it really isn't a good idea to make your landlord go through the courts to get rid of you, although I do understand the unfortunate local authority rules that sometimes make this necessary if you want to be rehoused by them.

Is there an area nearby your friend could better afford to rent in, near enough for her and her DH to reach their jobs? I know sometimes a short distance can mean a very different rent.

So basically, thecatneuterer, all the cards are in the LL's hand and they can treat a tenant exactly as they wish because their trump card is that one word from them and the tenant might never be able to private rent again.

What a great system

If you have 2 homes then you have a lot of money. Don't treat people who rely on rented accommodation due to council house shortages like shit. You are better off!

Well hardly suburban. LLs get taken to the cleaners everyday. It can take eight months or more to evict someone if they stop paying rent for example, and the LL has no chance of ever getting it back. LLs lose thousands and thousands of pounds this way. The reference thing is really the only card the LL has in this situation, and tenants seem well able to get round this.

I always feel as though the tenants hold all the cards. They can play the system and move from one landlord to another, paying only the deposit and the first months rent and then never paying again until they finally get evicted many, many months later, when then can then move on and do the same again. LLs are legally required to keep providing a service when they are receiving no money for it. I can't think of any other area of commerce where this happens.

References are the only way LLs have of trying not to take each others' bad tenants. But unfortunately these are probably quite easy to fake. The Landlord Reference Service database is useful in avoiding this, but its use isn't widespread enough for it to be foolproof.

That is so true Suburban Rhonda - the whole set-up is terrible in so many ways. Landlords do have the power in the equation.

A relative of mine used to rent out a flat, she had one tenant run off without paying, and another left the flat covered with used syringes (won't even tell you about the way the bathroom was left). Also it was in a rural area without a constant flow of tenants. I know they can have problems but in most markets it is the tenants who are suffering and have very little they can do but give notice. I rent in a big city and it is brutal.

In this case though I don't think anything can be done. You shouldn't take a rental on the 'understanding' that anything will happen to be honest - either an agreement is in the contract or it doesn't exist.

What happens if you move out of a catchment area? Do the children automatically lose their place even if they have been there a while and could still reach the school?

Well it's interesting to hear that side of it, thecatneuterer.

I'm trying to help three families find a solution to impending eviction at the moment - all three have primary-school age children, all three are headed by single parents. As I've said upthread, I would not be involved with these families at all if there was a good supply of affordable private rental property and if the families didn't have to find around £2k every time they had to move. Or better still, if families didn't have to wait 5-6 years to even stand a chance of becoming eligible for social housing.

I'm sure there are bad tenants as well as bad landlords, but all these families have done is have the misfortune to be renting from landlord who wants to sell up.

temporary, in my LA you don't lose your place at the school just by moving. But the families I work with don't just move - they're normally placed in temporary housing miles outside the area, so without their own car, have no chance of getting the children into school. Add to this the chronic shortage of primary school places and what you tend to get is children just not going to school because where they are moved to has no places in the local schools, or the nearest school is still too far for them to travel to. Or worse, the children are all placed in different schools.

For vulnerable children, that's often the icing on the cake and that's when they drop out altogether.

The problem is that housing department work to the Housing Act and we in schools work to the Children Act. And never the twain shall meet, so it seems

If the OP's friend is such a great tenant, why not approach the agent and ask about other properties they have available? I had to move once when the owner sold the house, and the agent told me I could take my pick of properties on their availability list. It may not have been the house of my dreams, but it was still a home, in the same local area, and the agency were willing to transfer my bond (deposit) straight to the new property so no additional money to save up. It might be worth her asking the agent if this is a possibility. Most agents would help out a really good tenant to get in to another property.

Suburban, that's not the case here, the ops friend can drive and has access to a car, it just might be easier to move their schools.

The "sit tight" suggests do miss the fact that won't achieve what the ops friend wants, she wants to stay until her dcs finish primary school, but at best, the staying until evicted route will get her a few extra months, the cost of that is it'll reduce the number of properties she could rent from other landlords.

If she could get a council property, that might not matter, but if there aren't available council properties in her area (and outside if cities, the same council district can be a huge area so she might feasibly be placed well over half an hour away even if that is "her area"), then she would be looking at a b&b, at least to start with, she might well prefer a private let, and this course of action will make that harder for her.

If you have 2 homes then you have a lot of money. Don't treat people who rely on rented accommodation due to council house shortages like shit

That's a fact is it? Have you never heard of negative equity.
Dumbass comment!

Who is being treat like shit?

Someone has agreed to rent a place and entered into a contract which presumably included an end of tenancy notice period.
This has been acted on. It's hardly a surprise. I don't see what is so bad.
Maybe the person renting should have negotiated a longer notice period five years ago.

mary, the OP hasn't said her friend can drive and has access to a car. She just talked about things being half an hour's drive away.

You're quite right, the tenant would be mad to upset the landlord in any way, as this would jeopardise her chances of renting in future. Even if she is kept completely in the dark about the LL's reasons for wanting her out after her apparently being such a good tenant for so long, she has to shut up about it because he can make things very hard for her.

If they can't find anywhere and haven't got the £2k for the costs involved in another private rent, they may end up in emergency accommodation. Even the government thinks this is no place to house children, which is why there is a strict six-week limit on it. Temporary (up to eighteen months round here) is no better, especially because you share bathroom facilities

OP, give your friend the number of the Shelter helpline: 0808 800 4444.

They may just confirm what she's been told, but it's worth a try.