Unwanted guest.

[melissa2929291936]

My work sent me abroad for six months.I arranged to rent our home out to a "friend".She only paid two months rent but I let it slide until we returned.When we did come home,she refused to leave the house.The police said there was nothing they could do so myself,husband and two small children had to camp out at my mothers thirty miles away.After six weeks of this,and having tried every legal avenue,I went to our home after "friend"had left for work.I still had my keys so I entered and turned the water off at the stopcock.The stopcock is in a weird place,not where you'd expect,so I was pretty sure she didn't know its location.I then cancelled the broadband for the address.That night she had the nerve to phone me complaining.She said she had an infant,a toddler and no water.I informed her she could go to her own mother (who lived in the same street.)but the rental time in our written contract had passed and she hadn't even paid me for most of it.Cue tears,threats etc but,because I knew she had somewhere to go,I held my ground.Went round next day and she'd gone,although the place was trashed.I had the locks changed,cleared up and moved back in.Now she's bad mouthing me all over,saying I threw out a mother with young children.Her main gripe though seems to be the lack of broadband rather than water! I genuinely don't think i was in the wrong "throwing her out"_I knew she wouldn't be on the street.

Whether or not she had one in writing she had a tenancy agreement because she was paying rent.

Can I book for a week at Butlins, find that I quite like it and decide to stay living there indefinitely, without paying a penny more? Would they be illegally evicting me if they expect me to leave at the agreed time so that their next customers can come in? Whilst I'm at it, maybe I could also hire and pay for a lovely car for a week to get me there, decide that I'd like to keep it and just do so forever - suing the car hire company if they try to cancel/don't keep renewing the tax and insurance on it and don't arrange to pay for future MoTs or compensate me if it later becomes unroadworthy whilst in my possession, because I haven't bothered to maintain it?

I think you'll find that if you stay for a week at Butlins (or indeed Centre Parcs) there will be a standard set of Terms and Conditions that you have to agree to (but probably never read) which sets out exponetially increasing punitive additional fees if you stay so much as an hour over your paid-for slot, let alone attempting to stay an extra night, and with rigidly enforceable terms making it clear that you are a guest on private property with temporary permission to occupy but such permission can be withdrawn at any time. Those Ts&Cs will have been written in a water-tight way to ensure that no tenancy is created.

Tenancy protection laws in England are written so that landlords can't evade their responsibilities by failing to have a proper legal agreement - there is a standard set of terms for a "Shorthold Tenancy" which is deemed to exist if any rent changes hands unless there is another legally valid agreement in place. House-sitters, lodgers, living-in staff etc can all be given appropriate agreements which set out their status and clarify the limits to their rights to occupy the premises such that they can be legally booted out at short notice at the owner's discretion.

Exactly this!

I am a landlord and had a tenant who got into 3k arrears before I had him legally evicted.

The cf is wrong and having been on the ops side of the fence it is frustrating however the law is the law and the op is the one who has broken it.

The only way to get a non paying tenant out is via the court. If they take the law into their own hands then that is still breaking the law despite how justified they feel it is.

The law is the law and the op can't effectively throw this person onto the streets any more than a loan shark can break their debtors legs.

You should have changed the locks when you got in there. Now she is just going to fuck up your house. Never rent to friends.

Flipping Henry, lots of people on here who would be at home running a Victorian workhouse! The minute rent is late, you toss a family out on the street?

The reason that is not allowed is because the situation is usually more complex and non-payment isn't always wilful - eg if you lose your job, have a benefits screw up, have illness that costs you £££, etc etc - you might be in financial trouble and unable to pay rent but willing to do so when you get back on your feet and make up arrears. If landlords could turf tenants out the minute they miss a payment, it would create unnecessary homelessness. They can follow the correct process to evict, which is unpleasant and stressful enough.

For most landlords, if there's a good reason for non-payment it's financially preferable to keep the tenant in because you'd lose a few months' rent and have to repaint, advertise etc to find new tenants.

Being a landlord means you're responsible for providing someone with a home, it's not something you should do casually or as a hobby. OP seems to have gone into it with zero forethought and presumably didn't really need the money as her employer would have covered costs for her time abroad.

Responsible landlords would carry out credit checks, get references, get a deposit and maybe a guarantor before letting. They might also have insurance against non-payment and damage to the property. OP just thought she could make a quick buck without going through the usual work involved in being a landlord.

It sounds like her tenant was a nightmare, but I've got very little sympathy.

It wasn't the minute she stopped; she'd stopped for months.

It's not right that tenants can bankrupt landlords by refusing to pay AND refusing to vacate, and deliberately trash their property to boot.

That's why we take deposits and charge more than our total overheads. After doing the whole trashed house and eviction process I make sure I can cover everything like this being recouped in my rent. This is why tennants moan that landlords make profit but in reality one short term tennent ( 2 years) wiped out any profits they paid. So in the end they paid to trash my house and not get their deposit back. Their rents over the two years covered new carpets throughout and total repaint and cost of removing months of bin bags for 6 months and 3 months of non payment of rent. My total cost included this buffer. Which is why after 5 years we let well below market rent. You have by then, paid off any possibility of needing to redecorate and refit. Harsh but the truth with a small but significant number of feckless families

There is legislation that needs to be used if a tenant is not paying rent. Ignoring the law in that respect does not constitute a good landlord. Please research what the law says about tenancies and the rights and responsibilities of both landlord and tenant. I would suggest that no one becomes a landlord unless they understand the position in law and what might happen if they don't comply. I hope no one thinks that taking the law into their own hands is the way forward in respect of any other activity. Presumably no one wants vigilantes roaming the streets, and we allow police and the courts to deal with criminals? The system may be flawed but it's better than none.
I am not commenting on the tenant, I am trying to explain the law on this matter, and would discourage those who act outside of it.

Surely the first time you went over when she was at work you could have chucked her out and changed the locks?!

Yes, I'm a non practising solicitor, my area of expertise - landlord and tenant . . .

If your house is mortgaged, does your mortgage permit you to sub-let?

Oh dear, you really dont have a clue. Op created an assured shorthold tenancy. She has carried out an illegal eviction, and probably didn't do any of the required safety check either.

@PrincessofWellies I do actually, because we looked into moving temporarily with work (and decided not to). We spoke to the council and this is what we were told. We couldn't pause our council tax and if we had someone else living there instead they would not be entitled to a single person discount as our temporary absence didn't count. As far as the council were concerned if it was our intention to return then we had to keep paying full council tax. None of us have seen the OP's legal contract, so none of us know whether the person living there was a lodger, a tenant or what.

What is the point in banging on about illegal evictions? It will only be a problem IF her old friend decides to pursue her. There is no indication that this is on the cards. What the OP is irritated about is the nasty comments. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the process the OP followed, the OP is, in my view, not unreasonable to have found the whole thing stressful and to feel that their friend has behaved completely unreasonably by lambasting them to others. But as I said, my only advice is to ignore the friend. She will run out of steam.

Council tax has nothing to do with the creation of an ast.

It's important that people reading this understand this was an illegal eviction because they might think it's OK and do it themselves to their tenants. There is so much poor advice and information on this thread, and it's extremely worrying that people think this is OK. It isn't. It's a criminal offence and also carries massive civil penalties in the form of compensation should the tenant pursue this.

The second line 'I arranged to rent my home to a friend'. The fact that the landlord may well have carried out an illegal eviction and is cross because the tenant has made comments which she finds objectionable are not viewed the same way by courts. Landlords may serve a term of imprisonment for an illegal eviction. And be fined and have to pay damages.
The fact that council tax said you still had to pay isn't part of the equation if it comes to it.

By the way it's irrelevant what you call it, it's the facts that count. It's an assured shorthold tenancy on the information given by Op.

And you're out to prove the reputation lawyer's have is well founded?

Someone took over the OP's house and refused to leave or pay rent, and you think it's disgusting to force them out? Do you have any sense of justice at all?

Yes. Do you? You think it's OK to break the law, to illegally evict a woman and two children from their home? To enter their property and turn off water to force them to leave?

It's dreadful and so are the attitudes on here. If Op didn't want to risk non payment of rent she shouldn't have rented the property out. In doing so she accepted that risk. It really is that simple. Landlords cannot behave like this in 2023.

I'm not a solicitor, I'm a retired homeless officer. I advised many landlords and tenants, the law exists for a reason. It's so that landlords can't just throw a tenant out as used to be the case. I can't believe that people think it's acceptable to ignore legislation. As I keep saying just Google illegal eviction, you will find landlords who have been imprisoned for failure to comply. A previous post gave a link to one who got a year inside and had to pay £8000 in damages. My aim in posting here is so that people who might be landlords understand the seriousness of not going down the legal route.
The arrears and alleged damage should have been dealt with appropriately and according to law, not in any other way. As should any allegations of an illegal eviction.

The stupidity of this post is that so many people can't differentiate between what seems to be right and what is actually right in law.

Just because some posters are pointing out how vulnerable Op is legally, it doesn't follow that they think the CF was justified in what she did.
It doesn't matter what so many here imagine was the right thing for Op to do, legally she was in the wrong and as such is massively vulnerable. So don't encourage her to go after the tenant for costs, one trip by the tenant to Shelter and all hell could let loose.
You can argue that the tenant was behind on rent, a cheeky fucker, morally wrong... until you're blue in the face. It still doesn't follow that legally Op was entitled to lock her out, cut off her water, take her stuff to her mum's etc etc. Don't rant and froth at the people who know about letting properties and who are simply explaining the legal position. You're just shooting the messengers, they didn't create the law.

And Google the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. If anyone can be bothered.

Hopefully you took lots of photos and set up a social media page that friends can see titled....
"Reason to not let your (so called) friend live in your house rent free while away"

Imagine a post from the tenant. I have a small baby and a toddler and am a single mum. Since renting my home things have taken a terrible turn and I'm struggling to pay the rent. I've informed the landlord and applied for housing benefits, but that takes time. It was supposed to be a 6 month rental but because of my financial situation I can't move as easily as I'd expected and have been informed by the council that I need to be evicted to be homed. I've been advised that I haven't been served with any notice to leave, that I should have had a section 21. I paid a deposit but the landlord hasn't sent me the information on where it is lodged. I haven't been given a gas safety certificate.
I got home from work last week and there was no water or broadband. The landlord has told me she won't turn the water back on and I should go live with my mother. I did move out, because how could I stay with no water and two young children? Landlord says I trashed the place but that isn't true, I just had to move out in a hurry and couldn't clean and tidy. I wish I'd taken photos when I moved in now.

@Samsungwasher how much of that would be lies though?