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.

@chickenyhead Its not the same everywhere.

speyejoe2.wordpress.com/2019/09/02/the-clarion-affordable-rent-scandal-tenants-overcharged-50m-pa/

Clarion Housing Group has overcharged its tenants by unlawfully setting its average affordable rent levels at 135% of market rent. In a sample of 1,477 Clarion 2 bed rents the 2018 overcharging comes to £10.2 million alone and Clarion had eight times that number of AR properties at 11,903 so the total overcharge could be over £80 million for that year alone though an actual figure closer to a £50 million overcharge is likely, an overcharge of a cool £1 million per week!

I'm not sure what your problem is. He's her son ffs. How odd to say he can't live with her because he's a student

I’ve never seen such a lack of reading comprehension on any other thread on MN, seriously how the hell are people getting that this student is the tenant’s son? Are they seeing the word ‘son’ and just thinking ‘fuck it, don’t need to read the rest’ before wading in with their advice? I despair. The standard of literacy displayed on this thread is worrying.

Doomsday I have just got to your comments, catching up this morning. As other have said YOU ARE WRONG.

A landlord instructs an agent to act on their behalf. The legalities remain the landlords issue and any error by the agent is the Landlords problem. For example, an agent does not protect the deposit in time, the Landlord is legally repsonsible; the correct tenant checks are not made by the agent, the landlord is legally responsible.

The case you cited the Agent was also the landlord “By not carrying out their duty as a landlord, MT Properties Central potentially put lives and property in danger by flouting the laws that are designed to protect people in their homes while using gas appliances.”

I work for a few agents who run their own portfolio, they are simultaneously the landlord and the agent!

at the expense of somebody else's not being able to save for a deposit I don't get that argument. It seems a bit circular... unless you expect all young adults to be given somewhere free to live for a while, so they can save for a mortgage deposit!

And it is cases like that linked to by Helena that need to be tightened up on. The wholesale ripping off of many, many tenants by one corporation with a deliberate policy.

They re the ones causing the spike in BTL - check your pension policy... it could be YOU that is profitting from it!

*I think it's unfair to say that the tenants are funding some sort of a luxury lifestyle for us...

This was our first flat in a city that we very much love, but don't currently live in due to work commitments, otherwise we'd love to live in that flat! It is in very good condition, in a very good location in a sought after city, so we charge accordingly. We don't have a mortgage and aren't relying on the tenants for anything. If it's empty we could probably stay there every now and again, but surely that would be a bit of a waste?

I don't get the hate for landlords to be honest. Not everyone does it for a livinghmm.*
So you have £1200 coming in every month for a property that costs you what £200 a month in fees? So you're getting £1000 a month, which is more than some people earn a month, but you don't think it's funding a luxurious lifestyle for you?? Or providing you with a living?
Really ??? So you give the money to charity do you? 🤔🙄

So you're getting £1000 a month, which is more than some people earn a month, Yes, as a return on their investment - savings perhaps, that they could have spent however they wanted to! It dodn't just arrive...

I don't get why people can't join all of th dots whenthey want to have a pop at private landlords. There are so many valid reasons to dislike the private letting sector, individual landlords really aren't the biggest issue - regardless of what Corbyn and various media outlets would have you believe!

To focus on them is to miss a fucking great elephant in the room... media and Labour feed this misplaced anger, why?

Posts like just smack of righteous indignation thinly covering jealousy.

@CuriousaboutSamphire
Whatever. I know I’m right and Joh66 is wrong.
Joh66 was saying that the “landlord” can only be the property owner, never the agency. That legal requirements of gas safety, right to rent “can never be delegated”. This is not correct.

You are actually agreeing with me on what I was saying- that when a property owner engages a property management agency, the legal responsibilities of the landlord then fall to the agency (per the vast majority of property management agreements) . That is why the agency is simultaneously the landlord and agent.

@CuriousaboutSamphire
RE-read the thread please. It stated with Joh66 saying the OP has to worry about the right to rent check and could be fined.
I wrote the OP doesn’t need to worry about it because she has an agency managing her property and it is their responsibility and they will get fined, not the OP. Same as other checks like gas safety.
Joh66 disagreed and posted landlord this landlord that with comments that only the OP can be the landlord (as owner) not an agency as these responsibilities “cannot be delegated”.
I posted the cases showing that it IS the agency that is responsible for landlord legal requirements and are the ones fined.

You then say I am wrong, but looking at what you wrote, you actually are agreeing with me.

when a property owner engages a property management agency, the legal responsibilities of the landlord then fall to the agency (per the vast majority of property management agreements) . That is why the agency is simultaneously the landlord and agent. No! An agency is both when it owns, or long leases a property AND manages the letting!

The responsibilities of a landlord cannot be delegated (remembering that the owner and landlord do not have to be the same person) but the agent, when not 'the landlord' is not a legal buffer!

Re-read what we both said, there is a difference.

To partaphrase

An owner does not have to be the landlord

The landlord is the person in whom leagl repsonsibility rests

An agent is not a legal buffer unless they are also the landlord - long lease or other legal demise - NOT when paid to let and manage a property on behalf of a landlord

I don't get the hate for landlords to be honest

It is hard to like people who think that you have to ask permission, and then be refused it, to have someone else living in your home.

It is hard to like people that have so much power over other people's lives that some of them use it unjustly but legally.

The landlord-tenant thing will always be problematic. I have more friends who are landlords nowadays, so I tend to side with them, but it is always going to be a problem and if the law doesn't properly protect each side's rights, even worse.

It is hard to like people who think that you have to ask permission, and then be refused it, to have someone else living in your home. Then take that up with the government and Shelter. They're the ones who increased the barriers to renting.

It is hard to like people that have so much power over other people's lives that some of them use it unjustly but legally. That's a view I find it very hard to have sympathy with. Yes, I have sympathy with anyone who cannot afford to live in a property they want to, owned or rented. But why do you single out landlords for 'having power' - employers, they too swap you a service for cash. They too have power over you. Is that unjust? Bus drivers? You have no control, you trust them to drive peoperly, to the right desrtnation... there are lots of areas in life, trivial and serious, where someone else has control.

Just as the tenant has power over the landlord, if they choose to overstay, stop paying th rent etc etc. It is veryrare that a landlord gets their property back quickly or ever recoups monies owed, whether rent or damages.

The landlord-tenant thing will always be problematic. Yep. And the government and media are doing a really good job of making the problems appear to be very one sided.

I have more friends who are landlords nowadays, so I tend to side with them, but it is always going to be a problem and if the law doesn't properly protect each side's rights, even worse. Absolutely

Sorry @Coyoacan I didn't mean to pick your post apart. I was just inetrestedin your points. It look quite aggressive once you press Post!

In anything like this, stick to the letter of your agreement - doing anyone 'a favour' will almost always backfire

No problem CuriousaboutSamphire.

why do you single out landlords for 'having power'

Because we are talking about landlords.

I live in Mexico and as most people don't get a pension, a lot of people save up and buy a property to have an income in their old age. Here in Mexico it can be extremely hard and expensive to get rid of a bad tenant.

This is a very tricky area of law, but I don't like the UK system either where tenants have virtually no rights.

This is a very tricky area of law, but I don't like the UK system either where tenants have virtually no rights. But tenants have a lot of rights, increasing every month, here in the uK. That's part of the problem.

What has effectively happened, depsite the stats overwhelmingly showing that very few tenants get shafted by landlord (i'll try and find the data, I posted it here a while ago), is that Shelter and the Labour party has demonised landlords to such an extent that many laws have been, and wil be passed, giving more rights to the tenant. The, presumably unintended, consequences of this is that landlords are having to be very much more careful when taking on a new tenant.

Not only do they have to act as customs officer, financial advisor, personal secretary and paper provider they are finding it harder and harder to get rid of a tenant who chooses to be difficult.. everyone from police to councils to courts give the tenant the benefit of the doubt mening the landlord has to wait weeks or months, often repeatedly, to get rid of a nonpaying tenant, with little or no hope of recouping any of the rent or costs of removal, let alone for any damage done over and bove 5 weeks rent's worth. So they say no for even the slightest moment of doubt.

Ah ha!

Research conducted by YouGov on behalf of the NLA in December 2018 showed that of the 11 percent of landlords surveyed who had sought possession over the last five years where the tenant was in breach of their agreement, 44 percent used only the Section 21 process to regain possession, while a further 22 percent used both Section 21 and Section 8. That last bit means that most landlords just asked the court to giive them their property back and did not chase arrears

According to the Government’s own figures, 90 percent of tenancies are ended by the tenant. Of the tenancies ended by the landlord, the majority are ended because of rent arrears. That's from the RLA, but the orgina data is easy to find from there!

So that 44% of landlords seeking S21 and 22% seeking both S21 and S8 was for that last 10% of tenancies, the ones where tenants had breached their tenancy. Basically because the other 90% the landlord was happy to leave the tenant in residence.

Yet Shelter use stats like 78% of homeless caused by being evicted! They don't say WHY tenants have been evicted or that standard council procedures mean that tenants HAVE to be homeless before they will even consider trying to help house them!

I hope that helps explain why I don't agree with the general feelings that private landlords are the bad guys.

@CuriousaboutSamphire I didn't say it wasn't a return on their investment, or that there was anything wrong with someone being a landlord or that I have any problems with landlords. I simply said the op can't act indignant about being timc she's financially benefiting from her tennant, because simply she is

timc ? Is that an acronym I haven't figured out or a misper...? I can't quite work it through - being dim I know!

As far as I can see OP isn't being indignant, just puzzled as to what is thw best thing to do to protect her investment and herself in law!

Be very careful, our landlord insurance does not allow students. I would also insist on references and a credit check if he is over 18 and he should go on the tenancy agreement, but if course you can also reserve the right to say no. It’s up to you who lives in your flat

Sorry it's a typo. I meant to say told.
I'm not talking about her concern with having the student there, I'm talking about her apparently not profiting from her tenant, when she obviously is.

If you do insist on a new contract.

Why let if you don't fully understand what you're doing and tenancy law.

She can have her son there. Doesn't make him a joint tenant, it simply makes him a permitted occupier. They have no say over the tenancy and if the tenancy ends he has to leave as well.

So much drama for a mother wanting to help support her son's future.

I'd suggest researching tenancy law. Try the landlord and tenants act 1988.

There is a difference between a friend or family member coming to stay for a few days and someone staying there permanently while studying.

I’d suggest reading the bloody thread/even just the original post if you can’t be arsed with the thread, user1482956724. 🙄