Surely I’m not expected legally to have this tenant in my property forevermore??

[Saywhetw]

Tenant been in property since 2017. I need to sell. Solicitor telling me we can’t used section 21 as I didn’t provide the right information at the time of the tenancy and also didn’t carry out electrical report or gas safety checks. This was oversight on our part. We can’t seem to use section 8 as tenant paid rent and isn’t a nuisance or anything but she literally won’t move even though we’ve asked repeatedly she just says she hadn’t got anywhere to go. It doesn’t seem right there’s no way out of this?? Solicitor said best they can do is write a letter asking her to vacate. I will get a second opinion tomorrow but really panicking now

But you still need to provide the right documents to serve a section 7, which OP doesn’t have and didn’t do. This is part of the whole mess that is of OP’s creation. She’d better start negotiating a chunky pay off to her tenant if she wants the tenant out asap.

This is mad and excessively punishing.

Circumstances can change dramatically over the space of a year.

An EICR is not a high bar to pass at all, it looks for correct earthing requirements & continuity tests in line with current Electrical regs.

Costs about £200 max and is valid for 5 years.

A 20yo house will need at most a new Consumer unit, all your cabling will be pvc, so thats all ok, might need the gas pipe earth bonded near the meter.

Max £1500.

Fire regs? an alarm and it can be a battery one, on each floor, a CO2 monitor by the boiler.

None of this is onerous.

At the end of the day, even if you just break even, in 25years, you have a house, mortgage free, where someone else paid all your costs inc the mortgage.

I read it as 8 months, as its 12months after issuing notice, which has to be a 4month notice period.

To protect Tenants from being evicted for no reason at all, the period on re letting has to reasonably long.

Well that feeds into my point - if people are merely buying to make a rental profit as opposed to living there, then it’s artificially induced demand.

“A bit silly and a bit arrogant” is an understatement. OP could have - indirectly - killed her tenant.

Your plan is risky because if the tenant doesn’t know already about the ‘oversights’ then they will do when OP brings them up which (unless the tenant is as stupid as some people on this thread) will ring alarm bells, possibly causing the tenant to take action against OP.

Bloody hell OP, have you now carried out electricity and Gas Safety checks and have relevant certificates?

How do you let the property? If direct how do you contract? Is it due for renewal? If you use an agent they are incompetent. Can you start a new contract? In line with new rental rules? One that has a mutual notice built in?

In your shoes I would get valuations done, speak to tenants and advise them that the property is going on the market, offer them first to buy (at market value), if they don’t want to then advise them that the property will go onto the market and that they will need to move, realistically you won’t be completing a sale for many months. I wouldn’t put it on for sale until January.

Our experiences then are clearly different. I’ve rented and my experiences have been good. I think the key thing is to not rent off some random person you find on Facebook or Gumtree. Which is common sense really. Always do it through an agent, as those are the landlords who do things by the book generally. The tenants who source a rental via social media and other platforms are probably doing it for the reason that they want to bypass credit checks and references, so are probably the sort of tenants who aren’t going to be great, so you could say in those circumstances that it’s not going to be a match made in heaven. Both landlord and tenant wanting to bypass processes that would protect them both.

You’re missing the point. Landlords can’t charge excessively high rents unless the market allows. The market currently allows that because there is no alternative housing. Governments since Thatcher have allowed social housing stock to dwindle and for private landlords to pick up the slack.

As our population has increased and other demands on housing have increased, demand on housing has gone up and supply has gone down.

You can argue for an end to private letting but that would require millions of social homes to be made available.

@Liondoesntsleepatnight You can’t just tell a tenant to move because you want to sell up and expect them to. Dud you know tenants have rights? You have to serve a section 8, but OP can’t because she’s been shit at her job.

Ermm. I don’t think you’ve thought this through…..where do private renters turn to? Go on the ever increasing waiting list for social housing for years, meanwhile living in a travel lodge subsidised by the government? Selling up private rentals will increase housing stock for buyers, but there are millions who cannot afford to buy.

Why?? We need rental properties. Many people want/need to rent and, for whatever reason, are not in a position to buy.

There is a very widespread hatred and resentment of LLs, which I think is misplaced. It’s irresponsible, greedy LLs we should direct anger at, but there are also many LLs who rent their properties with integrity and fulfil all their obligations.

When I was renting over the years, I had several great LLs, who treated me with respect and kindness. And when I was a LL myself, I did the same to my tenants. Not all LLs are monsters!

I'm sure this is well intentioned but mostly incorrect. OP can't just put the property on the market and expect the tenant to move. That's the whole point of the thread. Due to her previous "oversights" she can't legally evict the tenant (or at least it's going to be difficult to do so), which leaves the tenants fully entitled to continue to live there which would prevent a sale with vacant possession.

OP can sell to someone willing to take it on with sitting tenants - that will be at a lower value than she could achieve selling with vacant possession but not impossible (even allowing for the "oversights" which may well limit the market).

OP I have a fantastic lawyer (not cheap) who would give you all the right info and solutions. DM me if you want his details.

The corporate landlord we rented from was a huge improvement over the two accidental landlords we rented from prior.

Not providing your tenant with up to date electricity and gas certificates is not an ''oversight''.

It is breaking the law and putting your tenant's welfare at risk.

Yet another example of why landlords get such a bad press...

What else have you managed to conveniently forget? did you put their deposit in a protected deposit scheme?

Frankly you are at fault here and you need to start following the law and collaborating with the tenant (ie pay them off to leave) to find a way out of your own mess.

Lucky you if you've only had good experiences. But I've only ever rented via reputable letting agents and never once had what I would call a good landlord.

I've had landlords that have followed procedure. So I suppose if that is your only metric then they were "good" landlords.

Obviously it’s not going to be 100% good experience, even with ones following process and procedure via agents. But your chances of getting a good experience are going to be greatly increased by using landlords sourced through estate agents.

Which is why I asked how you're defining "good". Bare minimum legally, doesn't equal "good" to me.
I feel like you're speaking as a landlord rather than a tenant.

No it's not! Once a fixed term period ends the tenant and landlord are STILL in a contract. The landlord still has to serve notice. Currently section 21 notice, soon to he changed. There is no automatic end to a tenancy without notice being served.

On balance I agree; not getting the basic tasks done (for 7 years, FFS) is ridiculous and deserves whatever penalties are coming, but it does someetimes seem a bit much that LLs are constantly told to suck up anything a tenant does wrong, only to be hammered when the fault's theirs

You're on the wrong forum really though, @Saywhetw; you'll get a lot of fnarr fnarr on here and would do much better with specialist advice

But on the other hand you could have lots of properties sitting empty in a housing crisis . No rent and the government won’t be getting tax / NI income either . Seems very ill thought out but then that’s this whole Government, rush to plug a hole but create so many more .

You're on the wrong forum really though, ; you'll get a lot of fnarr fnarr on here and would do much better with specialist advice

What a patronising and snotty comment. Many of us have direct experience of this kind of thing and the first thing OP needs to do is negotiate a financial deal to get the tenant out (the classic ‘cash for keys’ method). If the tenant doesn’t leave then that’s the time to get legal advice and then the costs to get the tenant out will quickly escalate.

Im a Tennant and l know our landlord cant evict us easily as he hasn't done the gas safety check for years, l think electric out of date as well.
I have pointed this out to him, but hes still delaying. Not that l think he wants to evict us but l suppose one day he will want to sell. Its ridiculous that he has no idea of his responsibilities. On plus side we are renting at below market value as he has only put rent up once in 10 years.
He has no interest in us as long as he gets his money every month.

Why would that happen?

A LL can evict for sale, to redevelop, so move back in, either themselves or family members.

What the RRB protects is LLs evicting for no other reason than to increase the rent.
Which is what that Labour MP did and then had to resign.

If a LL can evict but then re-let, you ve basically allowed No Fault Evictions.