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.

This would surely have been the easiest and quickest option. Get the locks changed when she was out. Bag up her stuff and take it to her mothers.
It’s history now but hopefully if something like this ever happens again you will deal with it a lot sooner.

I'm astounded that people on MN think that landlords should be allowed to do this, to be honest.

Are you also astounded that people think they can agree to pay rent, just stop paying with no explanation and then continue living there - after the agreed time period?

It's clear which posters on here are the sort who 'know their rights' and will enact them however reprehensibly in order to trample over other people's. Some people baying for OP's blood also don't seem to care that she isn't a rich landlord with 100 properties; by being denied access to her own home after the contracted rental period, effectively (even if not technically legally), she and her family were being evicted from their own home. If they hadn't had family to stay with, OP could not only have been sleeping on a park bench but also been risking prosecution for not being able to pay a thief's bills! Morally, it's the equivalent of a burglar suing you for not providing enough suitcases for them to take your possessions away in.

How can it possibly be illegal to 'evict' somebody who had an agreed-time contract once that time has elapsed, even if you can't do anything about the four months of the contract where you legally have to keep your side of the agreement but oddly, they don't have to keep their side?

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?

There was no exclusive use tenancy agreed from what I can see. The OP was also paying and named on all the bills therefore would be difficult to prove that it wasn't legally her main residence still.

Disgusting behaviour on your part. I sincerely hope you are prosecuted and have to pay damages to your victim.

Assuming that you aren't a troll, do you genuinely think that people should be allowed to do anything they like, no matter how much it adversely affects innocent people, and then want to see those innocent people punished?

If I had a jeweller's shop that thieves tried to ramraid, and in so doing so injured themselves, would you want to see me punished for that and pay them damages too - as well as have to pay to repair 'their' car that they stole 'fair and square'? That's morally pretty much equivalent.

Also the friend only paid 2 months rent therefore her 'unwritten' tenancy was effectively terminated once she stopped paying and she was illegally occupying at that stage. There was no exclusive use agreement so the owner had every right to enter and then the friend chose to voluntarily remove herself so she'd have no leg to stand on legally.

Id like to know how those defending the CF would feel if it was their home damaged and invaded. I'd also like to know which defenders are tenants themselves and are perhaps therefore taking their own LL issues out on the OP maybe.

OP says there was a written contract. A tenancy isn't 'effectively terminated' if a tenant stops paying rent.

As much as I can wholeheartedly agree the tenant was a CF who has right royally taken advantage of the OP, tenancy law is watertight to stop landlords taking advantage of tenants. No amount of semantic argument and people's opinions changes the fact the OP gave exclusive possession in exchange for rent and therefore a watertight tenancy commenced. It doesn't matter whose name the bills were in, lots of tenancies have rent inclusive of bills and the bills remain in the landlord's name.

Whilst a tenancy can have a fixed term the tenant does not have to move out of the property at the end of that. The only two people who can end a tenancy are a court of law and the tenant themselves. The landlord can request possession back using a section 21 or section 8 but if the tenant chooses not to leave they must apply to a court to be awarded possession.

Not sure how much more clearly it can be explained @hoophoophooray and @loislovesstewie have been trying really hard and are clearly experienced in this area (as am I) but some posters continue to disagree. There's a difference between was is morally right and what is legal unfortunately.

Who has defended the CF?
Nobody

You might think tenancy law is unfair and you might be right but the fact is it's the law. Yes people absolutely CAN stop paying rent and continue living there after the agreed tenancy period. That's the law.

That's not how tenancies work!!!

If I was letting out my most expensive asset I would do checks and ensure I had proper paperwork in place including insurance. The OP has been extremely cavalier and foolish by renting it casually to some rando she seems to not have known well at all.

completely wrong to it would be easy to just kick people out as soon as they are late with their rent.

What OP should have done would have been to have a legal agreement drawn up which "friend" signed in advance which set out that
(a) the property remains OPs main family home and that "friend" has the status of a lodger
(b) that no shorthold tenancy is created by this agreement because of the house remaining OP's main family home,
and (c) that the arrangement is understood to be absolutely temporary and will under no circumstances continue beyond (date, ideally less than 6 months)

and then continuing with standard terms of a lodger agreement. Ideally having the agreement specifying certain rooms of the house that "friend" does not have the use of, to reinforce the status that the "friend" does not have exclusive use of the property.

This would then have meant that when OP returned home she would have been able to give 2 weeks notice and then moved back in, and the police would have been able to assist if "friend" refused to leave.

Good to learn from this experience!

The tenant wasn't "late with their rent"; she paid only the first two months and then did not pay the other four months.

None of that would have prevented her claiming she had an AST if she was minded to take it to court. She wasn't a lodger, she paid rent for exclusive use of the property. You can't get someone to sign a contract that negates their legal rights, and you can't claim an arrangement is something it's not.

And the OP didn't follow the process to end the tenancy legally on the basis of non payment, which she could and should have done.

Unfortunately it makes no difference
You cannot evict for non payment or late payment of rent without following a process

I think that that point was already made by about 20 people.

I didn't say it "ma[de] a difference; I was replying to a previous poster who said that the tenant was late with their rent.

That was me and I didn’t say this Person was late with their rent.
My point was that IF you could evict without process for non payment you could chuck someone out as soon as they were late with their rent - and you can’t

Bloody hell, in my view the tenant's rights should end as soon as they don't pay rent.

Someone upthread said if the OP wants the benefits they should comply with the law...well I say if the tenant wants a home they should bloody well pay for it too!

Did she have a proper tenancy agreement? If she did you have illegally evicted her.

I would take some legal advice personally.

You're welcome to your view but it's not in line with the law.

I don't know if OP is still around, and I know it makes no difference legally; but I do wonder who was the driver of the agreement: did OP need/want the rent and actively look for a short-term tenant or did the frenemy hear of the situation with OP's house being vacant and enquire/request/plead with OP to let her live there?

Legally, she may have been in the right, but it may well have been her plan all along to actually steal OP's home, whilst still expecting OP to pay all the bills for it! It seems mad that I could walk out of Asda having stolen a bag of potatoes and they could quite legitimately prosecute me; yet somebody can steal an entire (all-costs-paid) house and the law protects them!

As much as I can wholeheartedly agree the tenant was a CF who has right royally taken advantage of the OP, tenancy law is watertight to stop landlords taking advantage of tenants.

It's very interesting, isn't it, how these watertight laws are made and enforced by governments and councils to protect vulnerable people with housing issues (and rightly so, when their circumstances are genuine) - but if those same tenants just stopped paying their council tax for a couple of months, those same authorities would very quickly not be quite so lenient on them.

I'd be fascinated to hear her justify herself - I just can't imagine how she could manage it? And - what her friends/relations had to say in response?? I'm just trying to imagine my mother backing me up in this kind of situation........no, sorry, can't possibly imagine it!

The law certainly is an ass in these matters.