To do nothing about tenant?

[MyBurdenisHeavy]

Hi folks, happy new year.

We have a flat in London that was used for work 2/3 nights a week. Been WFH since pandemic and started to rent it out a year ago. It’s not typically a “family” building. Mainly young professionals. Anyway we were approached by a company who offered to lease it from us and they would manage the letting. Turns out they have a contract with a homeless charity or such and had a few units in our building housing homeless families during the pandemic. No issues there - all good. Fast forward a year and we’re being contacted by other tenants/owners who managed to get our number, pleading with us to do something about the people in our flat (a mother and 3 boys I understand - 2.5, 4 and 6). Apparently they are making the lives of the people below them (at least 2 flats based on the way they are laid out) an utter misery - stomping, running, jumping from morning to night I’m told. I contacted the company we leased it to and they said that they had received some complaints a few months ago and called out to talk to the family a few times. The complaints kept coming and ultimately they said the woman explained that the children were just playing and being kids so she didn’t know what they wanted her to do. They told me the kids were probably a bit boisterous alright but ultimately that’s part of apartment living and the neighbours just have to accept there’s a family living there and get on with it. The complaints kept coming apparently but they had closed the matter and are no longer responding to them - they told me there is a legal route the other residents could take if they felt strongly about it, but it rarely happens so just sit tight and don’t worry about it.
I’m now up the walls with anxiety and guilt and don’t know what the right thing to do is.
It’s abundantly clear that the woman cannot or will not control the kids (no judgement - just stating fact that it will not be resolved from that side). So the options are to carry on and leave things as they are - thereby upsetting the neighbours and ruining their home life (their words), or terminate the lease (I can do this in 4 months) and cause distress to the woman and her kids.
AIBU to do nothing, stay out of it and leave the family stay there?

OP - is the agent one of these "rent to rent" / "guaranteed rental income" rather than a letting agent per se? I've heard stories before about these kind of people - and the veiled threat about bad PR is a bit of a warning sign too.

If a single mum with boisterous kids isn't the normal "occupant profile" of the building (think you said about it mostly being young professionals) and they're negatively impacting the lives of pre-existing occupants (even more so with WFH) then I think you have a moral duty to act.

I'd serve notice on the "agent" tenancy that they're then subletting from, and find a new tenant more suited to the profile of the building.

I’ve just noticed too that mostly it’s young professionals living there.

I’d give your tenants via charity notice to quit and sod their PR threat too.

Doesn’t look like the other tenants would be happy either way and these ones won’t be quieter.

@AncreneWisse

You are not the LL, the company is, so this is not (directly) your problem. The company was perfectly right to be wary of evicting a mother and 3 young children just before Christmas. And the mother is probably right saying the kids are just being kids. As the company said, there is a legal route the downstairs tenants can pursue if they really believe the behaviour is unreasonable. Let them go for that and it will be investigated legally to determine. It will very probably turn out that nothing really unreasonable is going on, and they just don’t like living below children. Well too bad. They should buy a house if they don’t want upstairs neighbours.

There should absolutely not be a situation in which families are excluded from apartment living because downstairs neighbours don’t like it.

In any case, you should stay out of it. As above, you are not the LL. Your contract is with the company, not the family.

Easy to be so blasé when you're not one of the poor sods living underneath them, isn't it.

perfectly right to be wary of evicting a mother and 3 young children just before Christmas. And the mother is probably right saying the kids are just being kids.

Perfectly right to probably ruin countless other people's Christmases, I'm sure.

Are you a leaseholder in the block? If you are check your lease carefully as your freeholder may take you to court for breaching your lease. Worse case scenario is you lose your flat basically, in reality you will need to evict the problem tenant, and pay any legal fees from the freeholder as well as your own.

You need to sort this, you are the leaseholder, not this company you have rented it out through.

It depends so much on the exact circumstances, children will make noise, if it's a young professionals type block the neighbours might be intolerant of normal household noise plus there's a distinct possibility they are bias against them if they realised they are in emergency housing, but if the noise is unreasonable (before 8am after 10pm and deliberate jumping, bouncing balls etc that's different and the tenants need a formal warning. I would suggest speaking to the council noise team for advice as to weather the noise is reasonable

I think the vast majority of renters who rent a flat as professionals in London expect on the whole to have normal noise and pay a premium rent for this. They’d live in a block of flats with other tenants including families if that was what they wanted.

Whenever I rented in my 20s I couldn’t care less where I lived as had more tolerance for noise, as I got older my tolerance grew less so I paid more to rent and eventually bought. I recall a couple of times with agents viewing flats to rent and saw a couple of couples with 2 young children in the block and immediately discounted them based on that. Harsh but fair. I didn’t want my sleep/enjoyment of the flat disrupted by screaming and banging by young kids even though I appreciate not all kids do that. And yes I know other adults can be just as bad as kids.

I'm a leasehold director for a block.

The helpful/ non judgemental bit:

1. what are your leasehold obligations about noise - our leases have a clause about noise and another about not causing or permitting (ie. allowing tenants/ sub-tenants) to cause nuisance.
   If you have these and are ignoring these the freeholder could move to enforce them and ultimately you could lose your flat.

2. have any of your neighbours involved the council noise team - this can provide objection recordings of how significant the issue is.

The judgmental bit
I fucking hate leaseholders like you. You want the money and capital appreciation from your flat but you don't actually give a flying fuck about the other people who live in the building nor are you thinking long term/ stratecially.

Give your head a really significant wobble. Imagine that you are trying to sell or rent your property - will you get the best price / rent if the there is audible noise and people witness that a flat is visibly overcrowded? Also what impact is a large family having on the common parts? If the mother can't control noise is she following other building rules e.g not storing stuff in the stairwell (prams/ bikes/ scooters) and rubbish disposal etc.

Renting to the subletting organisation might have been easier for you but it most certainly isn't easier for your neighbours and the fact that you are even hesitating about resolving the situation reflects really badly on you.

@Cocomarine

“It’s abundantly clear that the woman cannot or will not control the kids (no judgement - just stating fact that it will not be resolved from that side).“

Is that clear?
How many people have actually complained to you, and how many of them actually would be impacted - only the 2 below?
Have you asked them about the other families housed there by the same company?

Are you sure this isn’t a group of child-free professionals being dismayed at their quiet block becoming a block with multiple families, and you’re part of a campaign against that, rather than this family being especially problematic?

It’s quite possible they are a bit of a nightmare… it’s equally possible that the other tenants are making disproportionate complaints.

I was thinking along very similar lines, @Cocomarine. I've lived in a purpose-built flat where the soundproofing was so poor that, if you didn't have the tv or anything on, you could tell when the people upstairs were eating their dinner by the clatter of cutlery on plates.

Three small children will make noise, especially when they don't have a garden to play in. What are they supposed to do, sit on their beds all day? This sounds to me like the ordinary noise of family life. The noise from my neighbours' children drove me bloody mad when they were small, and we're in semi-detached houses. I didn't dream of complaining, they were only playing and having the occasional tantrum. as children do.

The neighbours have had the luxury of living close to a flat that was rarely occupied, and when it was it was only occupied by adults, who were out most of the time. They're having a close encounter with real life, and it seems they don't much care for it.

This poor family must have been homeless, or very close to it, to have been placed in TA in the first place. I certainly couldn't take any action that would risk them being homeless again, just because their children are a bit noisy when playing. My conscience wouldn't allow it.

Hi OP. I haven't RTFT so this may have been said before. You are likely to be in breach of your own lease if you allow this to continue and if those around you decide to take action, then you could have very serious problems (the most serious of all being forfeiture of your lease).

The company that is renting it from you has its clients and its own interests at heart, not yours. So don't take advice about this, such as "this rarely happens" or about the process or your rights from them. See a solicitor to go through the documents relating to the scheme you are on and see what you really need to do.

I'm all in favour of trying to help people to stay housed and making sure that homeless families, single parents etc. can get tenancies BUT this does need dealing with now. Children do need to play and 4 normal sets of footsteps on some floorings in some older buildings is noisy even without additional galumphing, and there are things that can be done to minimise it (including you investing in carpeting with excellent underlay and possibly soundproofing too, if you would want to go down that route) but it would need to be behavioural on her part as well, ie you need to be working with someone who wants to work on the problem with you. Fundamentally an upstairs flat is rarely a good option for a group of small lively children.

(On the advice of an appropriate solicitor) you could try to give her a final warning, but I think if that doesn't work or isn't possible in the specific framework you are operating in with this scheme, you are going to have to start the process to have her removed. And don't feel guilty about it.

@SofiaMichElf yep, children can be noisy. The downstairs neighbours have legal options open to them if the noise is unreasonable or the behaviour antisocial. If it is just kids being kids, then the neighbours have got to suck it up.

Yes, I absolutely look at it from the family point of view.

And the idea that “countless” people are having their Christmases ruined instead is just silly.

@Faretheewellmyfairyfay the OP cannot give the tenant a final warning, because she is not the OP’s tenant. She is the tenant of a company who is the OP’s tenant.

@PixieLaLa

Have you checked they are not damaging your flat too? I think morally you can’t just do nothing knowing how distressed people living around them are.

My builder BIL does a lot of refurbs for a company that leases properties and then uses them as TA for homeless families.

The terms of their leases specify the they will hand the property back in the condition they got it it, so the council just pay for a full refurb when they no longer require the property. It's a good earner for BIL.

I can see the attraction for owners, too, as they don't have any hassle when it comes to dealing with tenants or maintenance and the income is guaranteed.

[quote AncreneWisse]@Faretheewellmyfairyfay the OP cannot give the tenant a final warning, because she is not the OP’s tenant. She is the tenant of a company who is the OP’s tenant.[/quote]
Absolutely this. The OP has no contract of any type with the tenant. The management company needs to take any action that needs to be taken.

And if the family end up losing the property because of noise nuisance, the council may well consider them intentionally homeless and refuse to help them further. The neighbouring council to mine did exactly that to one family (mind you, they were a full-on nightmare, but that's another story).

I couldn't kick out a single mother of 3 who's clearly fallen on hard times.

I'd get them out OP, they are making everyone's lives a misery. I had a friend, single mum, 3 kids. Neighbours were constantly complaining. She claimed it was just normal kids noise. To her, normal was allowing the youngest to jump up and down on the spot for an hour, bang bang bang their toys on the laminate flooring, her screaming at the kids constantly. It must have been utter hell for the downstairs neighbour. No one should have to live like that. Think about what you'd want your neighbour to do if it was you being forced to live in abject misery.

@Morgan12

I couldn't kick out a single mother of 3 who's clearly fallen on hard times.

Hard times or not, people would have more sympathy perhaps if she were to have some consideration for her neighbours and live like a decent human being.

I would check the terms of your lease. Most leases have clauses regarding other tenants quiet enjoyment of their property. Also I think technically the agency is your tenant and they are in fact sub-letting your property. This may also be covered.
The woman sounds a bit of a nightmare to be honest and like she doesn’t want to engage so, yes, I would terminate her contract. I would also terminate the one with the agency.

Moving 3 children into too small a flat in a block full of professionals was always going to not end well. If 3 have actually complained, then more will be pissed off. The fact the noise is all the time (not just first thing, early evening) means there is no control. DH grew up in a flat, they were very aware of bothering neighbours.

My friend just moved out of a flat where she could hear a family 2 floors up. There was no effort to control their noise and they were horrendous in the corridors/stairs.

Some of your neighbours have probably been made to also WFH so I imagine it’s worse than usual.

I recall a couple of times with agents viewing flats to rent and saw a couple of couples with 2 young children in the block and immediately discounted them based on that.

I did the same. Saw a lovely flat but there was clearly a family living in one of the flats as part of the communal hall area was full of small children’s bikes. Not only would there have been small children noise but the parents clearly thought the “please keep this area clear” signs didn’t apply to them, so god only knows what else they thought the same of.

My last flat - which was rented - didn’t permit children at all in any of the flats because of the noise issues.

The other thing to consider, OP, is that if you need your fellow leaseholders’ goodwill and you’ve pissed them all off by letting your flat out to a company that sublets to all and sundry who makes their lives a misery, good luck with ever getting any help or permission to do anything in the future.

Agree with those who have said its likely not the mothers fault if she and 3 young children are crammed in a 1 or 2 bed flat in a building designed for professionals.

But it's not fair on your neighbours who likely paid premium prices for a professional dominated environment and likely also wfh.

With multiple complaints in your shoes I'd be considering myself to have made a big mistake and be talking to the company you contracted with to either end their contract or agree a tenant profile / maximum occupancy level going forward. I wouldn't be putting a homeless, cramped single mother under any more pressure to quieten her children, I'd leave it to the agency to move her somewhere more suitable.

@Morgan12

I couldn't kick out a single mother of 3 who's clearly fallen on hard times.

I agree. The noise complaints sound like it’s just a bit of playing around. It’d be different if they were all left screaming and running up and down the corridors or throwing dirty nappies off the balcony. It sounds like their crime is they’re just existing in the proximity of precious adults and are possibly lowering the tone.

I was just talking to DH about this, he was saying its increasingly easy to set up one of these "agencies" that rents out properties from tired landlords, then sublet to councils due to the housing crisis (his family are all in construction so see a lot of conversion work etc). These agencies are not like the charity mentioned upthread and they aren't interested in anyone's welfare, goodwill or anything. It's just about their slice of the money they charge the LA.

Serve notice on them, take it as a lesson learned, find a good managing agent if you're too busy and insist on a tenant profile that matches the building so that everyone can live harmoniously.

Buy a few bottles of wine for the block residents as peace offerings too.

Sounds like you've sadly fallen prey to a bit of sharp practice from this "agency" who have put your lease, your money, your neighbours' right to peaceful living, and this woman's housing situation (by virtue of placing her in a wholly unsuitable place) at risk - all for an easy profit.

If I were the neighbours being regularly disturbed by the 'kids being kids' excuse for anti-social behaviour I would be having the noisiest TV or music playing once the woman wants her dear children to be asleep.

And that would make you a spiteful prick

@Malibuismysecrethome

I would check the terms of your lease. Most leases have clauses regarding other tenants quiet enjoyment of their property. Also I think technically the agency is your tenant and they are in fact sub-letting your property. This may also be covered. The woman sounds a bit of a nightmare to be honest and like she doesn’t want to engage so, yes, I would terminate her contract. I would also terminate the one with the agency.

The term “quiet enjoyment” does not refer to low noise levels. Quiet enjoyment means the landlord will leave the tenant be and won’t for instance, be bugging them to do things that aren’t part of the lease.