About current tenant's request

[Neonpotato]

Name change as outing.

We have a tenant in our 2 bed flat currently, she seems nice.
Our letting agency has told us that apparently our tenant's friend's son is coming over from overseas to study, and she has asked whether it's ok for him to live in the flat. The agency has checked with insurance and it's fine, and it's not considered subletting as she will continue to pay rent and has full responsibility of the flat.

Can I say no? We specified at the very beginning that no students are allowed. I guess it's not so bad if she also lives there but I don't know how long he will be there for, and worry that he will stay on even if she leaves at some point.
It was good of her to ask and I don't want to be a difficult landlord but we don't really want students. Happy to be told that IABU though.

I agree with @MerryBerryCheesecake.

& by the way the land lord is responsible even if the agent has checked & made a mistake & can be fined - I am still puzzled as to how the agent was able to contact the landlords insurance & change it -I don't think my insurance agent would allow this because it has nothing to do with the agent nor can I see they have the legal right to do this - I find this extremely odd.

. . . and ensuring your tenant or occupants have the right to rent is ultimately the responsibility of the landlord not the agent.

I think this is awful. If someone rents a 2 bed property from you, I don’t see why you should have a right to refuse them have someone use the 2nd bedroom, just because of a prejudice against a certain person (in this case students).

If she’s a nice tenant, I would get over yourself and allow her to have her friends son to stay. We treat all of our tenants with respect, and they treat us with respect by asking before they do things. If the answer is always going to be no, people will stop asking.

If she is still fully responsible for the rent, and your insurance allows a second person, I don’t see how or why you could have a problem with it. One of our tenants recently had his 22 year old son (student) move in for a year whilst doing a uni placement. Of course we said yes, rent carried on coming in, and it didn’t affect us one bit.

I suppose I worry about what he's like, could be lovely but I wouldn't really know

Presumably the same worry you had with your tenant?

I mainly worry about him staying on if she leaves, not sure how long he's here for and how would I know he would be able to pay rent? It's over £1200/month and we are planning on increasing it at some point.

This is irrelevant if your agreement is with her. If she leaves, the agreement ends.

@Joh66
No, it’s a true story. She was served a section 21 eviction two weeks after the funeral. You can only go to court if you had a contractual relationship with the landlord. She did not because she was not a tenant but an occupant. The council could do nothing. She was technically a squatter. The section 21 gave her 60days to move out and she did.

I rented for a long time until recently managed to get myself on the property ladder, but when I did rent, I let my daughter’s boyfriend move in while they were waiting for their new build house to be ready, which took 12 months, and I never thought to check with the landlord first. People’s situations change all the time, and I really don’t think it should be necessary to seek permission to move someone in with you if you are paying your rent and generally being a good tenant.

Why do tennants, who can't afford a home of their own and have no choice but to rent one which belongs to somebody else, think they have a right to just allow others to move in as though they owned the property themselves?

Because I pay £2400 per month. The landlord is providing a service and I'm his customer. His house but MY home. As for the day to day living arrangements of who stays in my home, I will do those my way. This thread is a real eye opener, I didn't even consider asking landlord if our niece could stay with us last summer for four months while on a work placement in central London. And I never will.

Where does this attitude of poor subservient tenants come from? It's so feudal. My landlord can make do with being very thankful for my money and not interfere in my everyday life in MY home, using MY home in such a normal way, letting family and friends stay.

@Joh66
“. . . and ensuring your tenant or occupants have the right to rent is ultimately the responsibility of the landlord not the agent.”

No. You are spreading misinformation. If a landlord has an agent, and the agent fails to do the right to rent check, the agent gets fined not the landlord. It’s the same with the gas safety cert. It’s WHY you pay for an agent.

I perhaps naively hope that my landlord doesn't share the ignorant misogynistic views of some supposed landlords on this thread.

I have rented throughout my adult life as I have no lump sum to buy. I pay 1400 a month and we agreed to rental terms.

He isn't doing me a favour! We have a mutually agreed contract.

My position as a tenant is not a matter for judgement or derision.

Wish I knew who some of these landlords were as I would rather be homeless than pay them my hard earned income.

of course she is going to be subletting it, I cannot believe anyone here thinks otherwise, given that as soon as any woman moves any man into her home the advice is to split bills according to income for fear of cocklodgers

Who is going to suck up extra costings for household bills for anyone there on a pretty permanent basis, the mother of the student is going to be paying something for the son as sure as eggs are eggs.

Considering there are so many LLs on here I'm astonished at the amount of comments saying she'll be subletting. That's completely ridiculous. If you sublet, you give up possession of the property you are renting, and can only enter with the permission of the person you sublet to. And wrt to him having rights, it's fairly easy to draw up a contract saying he is allowed to remain until X date, or until the tenant surrenders her tenancy, whichever comes first. He would only have real rights if he was a joint tenant, just being on the tenancy agreement doesn't hold much weight. Just ask the thousands of people who have had to move out of properties following relationship breakdowns or death of the main tenant.

He will essentially be a lodger which, given it's a 2 bedroom property with a single person occupant is fair enough. If you haven't stipulated in the tenancy agreement that no lodgers are allowed, then YABU.

What is your main issue with the situation? That he's from overseas, that he's not a blood relative or that he's a student? If he was moving from overseas to work here instead of study, would you still say no? If it were a niece or nephew, or adult child of your tenant, would you feel differently? If he was unrelated, but from the UK and either student or working, how would you feel?

Even if you say no you may have no right to prevent her from having someone stay if it doesn't count as sub-letting.

Clearly you know sod all about ASTs.

Jesus, @Neonpotato, I cannot believe your letting agent has done that and how could they without your written consent?! I’d go nuts at them and tell them they’ve broken the terms of your contract and sack them immediately. Also phone your insurance broker immediately and say it’s been done without your consent and tell them the agreement must go back to the original format NOW. Bloody hell, as a ll, I would absolutely hit the roof on this!

DoomsdayCult And actually, the agent does seem reliable because they’ve already done the FREE check with the insurance company.

Insurance companies don't carry out immigration status checks.

The agent has breached their express authority and they have no implied or ostensible authority so they have acted ultra vires and their acts cannot bind the OP.

My position as a tenant is not a matter for judgement or derision.

Absolutely Chickenheady totally agree. I can only assume some of the dreadful attitudes are from non-landlords. I've never had a bad landlord, they've all been too savvy and clued up to treat us with nothing but respect, as we are their customers.

And never had we had a clause about people staying with us.

@Mummyoflittledragon My posts on this thread were pretty lighthearted, but I found the whole flouncy 'how do I leave permanently' posts to be akin to those who post a dramatic status about leaving Facebook, as though anyone else could care less!

It seems like such an over the top reaction to a post simply being deleted.
People are allowed to have a bad day, and I'm allowed to poke a little fun at the dramatic threat of them leaving forever [dum dum duuuummm]

"You agreed to let to the tenant, not the tenant and a friend's son. You have no idea if he has a criminal record, for example is a drug dealer, and would be operating a drug ring from your flat. He literally could be anyone"

i suppose you could say the same about a social housing tenant taking in a lodger to offset the cost of the bedroom tax. The above quote didnt seem to apply when right wing tenant haters were advising SH tenants to do this though. Still all the goalpost moving must be good for keeping fit i guess,

@QualCheckBot
DoomsdayCult And actually, the agent does seem reliable because they’ve already done the FREE check with the insurance company.

*Insurance companies don't carry out immigration status checks.

The agent has breached their express authority and they have no implied or ostensible authority so they have acted ultra vires and their acts cannot bind the OP.*

You’ve read it wrong. I wasn’t referring to immigration checks. I was referring to how the OPs agent checked with the insurance company whether or not a second occupant was ok. This is a phone call. The insurance policy was NOT amended or altered in any way. This is within the remit of a property manager.

My friend used to let to students and had many problems (mostly theft/damage of contents). It’s perfectly reasonable to say sorry no students.

I think that landlords having a blanket 'no students' policy is appalling and skating on very thin moral ice. It reminds me of that Wilson couple who, until they started selling them off and 'retiring', owned half of Ashford. They don't allow the unemployed, single mothers, self-employed tradespeople and Asians "because they will probably leave the house smelling of curry".

Would you refuse to rent to teachers, doctors or lawyers? They were all students once too. By all means, if you actually meet somebody and have valid concerns about them, feel free to decline them; but just to discriminate against a whole wide disparate group of people in that way is just awful.

People who rent invariably end up paying far more money each month towards somebody else's mortgage than homeowners/buyers pay for their own. Some do it through choice for various reasons, but the vast majority are pushed into it because they're unable to get on the property ladder (I don't have a downer on good landlords, but some would say this is because of people buying second and third properties and thus pushing up prices for everybody).

If there is no sign of criminal, antisocial or dubious behaviour on the part of the tenants, why should they be treated with suspicion and like second class citizens, unable to live freely in their own homes, for which they pay, just like anybody else? As has already been said, landlords aren't 'doing them a favour' any more than Tesco are doing you a favour by letting you buy a trolley-load of food each week - it's just business.

We see this attitude on MN a lot, wherever there are relatively petty neighbour disputes and people are urged to 'report them to their landlords', as if they were naughty children or living their entire lives on some sort of probation.

Yes, there are good and bad people - some of them rent, some own their homes; some are students, some are not. Nobody would dream or putting up those wicked 'No Blacks, No Irish' signs these days, but renters and students are fair game, it would seem.

Who is going to suck up extra costings for household bills for anyone there on a pretty permanent basis, the mother of the student is going to be paying something for the son as sure as eggs are eggs.

Why on earth does that have the slightest relevance to the landlord? The tenant is presumably responsible for arranging and paying all bills incurred in her own home.

JollyHolly - no, I'm honestly not flouncing, there's a special place for that somewhere here! I genuinely and still jokingly want out of here but can't find the door! Not attention seeking, just hacked off with some of the nasty attitudes towards tenants on this thread. None of you know me so why would I care what opinion you have of me? Get over yourselves!

@DoomsdayCult no you are wrong. First of all in the circumstances you cite, the spouse would succeed to the tenancy because that is what the law states. This means she becomes the tenant, not a squatter. Secondly a s21 notice is a notice advising the tenant the landlord wishes her to leave the property in two months. It is not an eviction. If she were not a tenant he would not have had to serve a s21 would he. Thirdly it is not an eviction even after the ll has applied to court for a possession order. A PO is a mandatory order providing the notice has been correctly served. She still doesn't have to leave. The next step for the ll is to apply to court for a warrant of possession. That is the point where bailiffs are appointed to carry out the eviction at a future date somewhere between 14 and 56 days. Which is why what you say happened wasn't what really happened. I think you may have mixed up terminology, but it's really important that people know the procedure. This is why Op should say no. It's hellishly difficult going through the procedure for the landlord and expensive. Because six months with no rent coming in means I don't eat. And because it's too much risking a person in the property who hasn't gone through credit checks, referencing and right to rent. We could have charged the person to foot those costs last year, but now we can't so we don't give permission any more. It's another example of a badly thought out law affecting tenants in a negative way. And yes i am in it for the income it gives me. I don't run a charity or do work for free. Do you?

@MerdedeBrexit I know there are good landlords, I rent here in the uk but I am a (good) landlord elsewhere. It should be remembered that these are people’s homes: they by law, are entitled to ‘quiet enjoyment’ of their homes. Please don’t assume the worst of people. People have been continually discriminated against in the housing sector because people allowed their prejudices to make decisions.