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

Just as an add we reported our abusive landlord for not doing a gas safety check. Local authority I think
He was a solicitor too!

Consider offering the lady six months rent to leave without prejudice. This is hard to save when you're renting.
I can't see this ending well. You've had a number of solicitors kindly advise you on this thread.

My pp re returning all her rent you will have to look up as that was my solicitors information at the time. We only didn't pursue it because we were threatened and it became a police matter.

Another ex-landlord here with no sympathy OP. You took on a profit making endeavour and did not dispense your basic responsibilities in ensuring the property was safe or that a proper tenancy agreement was in place. This is why proper landlord registration, tenancy deposit schemes, safety checks and more is a Good Thing. In Scotland, missing these things can land you with really significant fines as well.

I am assuming now that all your safety is up to scratch, the house meets appropriate standards throughout, and that your full paperwork is in order to evidence that? If not, that has to be step 1 before you worry about anything else.

Secondly, you will have to speak to the tenant and seek them moving out on good terms.

The tenant will often get good advice from many housing charities to use the full extent of their rights under the law. And in my experience, councils or charities are not averse to advising people how long they can stay even when the procedure and paperwork is followed (months, until court issues eviction) this is because we are in a housing crises - both a shortage of property and an issue with too many dodgy landlords and overcharging.

The tenant really does have you over a barrel, and indeed if the precedent in law above is correct, you may now have a sitting tenant.

Is your solicitor an expert in tenancy law and practice? I would make sure they are and ask questions such as:

• can you force a new, up to date contract with all the appropriate clauses in, with the existing tenant?
• Would selling the house enable a new landlord to do the same?
• What other leverage is there with the tenant? There can be some sh*tty routes here like putting up rent to uncomfortable levels.
• What creative options are there - including offering to pay the tenant to leave?

I will say it again - basic things like a legal tenancy and doing safety checks is not an oversight, it is unsafe and unsound and places you in the 'dodgy landlord' category firmly. So no sympathy, but I would also understand there are practical steps you can take to explore.

Futile arguing about how prices work...as soon as it's an emotive topic it's all just "greed". And yet if most people are asked what would happen to, say, apple prices in a really strong harvest year, they'd correctly say that apple prices would drop. Supply won't be increased (and therefore prices fall) by changing who owns the houses, it will change if we either build more houses or have fewer people overall and/or fewer single person households.

Why would you consider not doing gas and electric checks could KILL her tenants? I have never done any such tests on my own house, and would never have thought of doing them if I'd had a house to let out.

How did you get rental insurance without the proper gas and electric certificates? It's people like you who give private landlords a bad name.
If you can afford it, offer her £5k to go and make sure you involve a solicitor and get a contract.

I don't think the taxation and regulatory changes to LLs, have made much difference to the housing crisis.

Governments not building council housing, reliance on Housing Associations but not funding them properly, allowing in millions of people from students to workers, but with no housing plan for them & many houses that have been built have, in the main, been far too expensive, even affordable ones aren't at all.

All of this has led to where we are now.

Well you should, at a minimum, have annual boiler checks. I am surprised you dont. You should get that in place asap as yes, you are putting your lives at risk. You should also have a carbon monoxide alarm. It is very easy to find out your responsibility as a landlord. 'not thinking of it' is no excuse.

Let’s hope that the OPs tenant isn’t a friend of the people who rented the house next door to me and decided to bypass their electricity meter. Their meter was in the cellar, on the side wall of MY cellar, next to the gas inlet pipes. If their home made utility savings scheme had gone tits up then their house, my house and lord knows how many other houses would have been damaged/ destroyed. Shock of my life when the Electricity safety people knocked on my door one Saturday morning and explained that they would like to check that my supply hadn’t been compromised.

When the new Renters Rights Act comes into force, likely half way through next year, you'll be able to give them notice if you want to sell your property. You'll need to wait until then.

Can you offer them money or move into the property yourself?

That might be what they want. Have you spoken to them about it?

You made a mistake. I’m amazed it’s only coming up now.

@jasflowers And allowing owners/landlords to sit on empty estate for decades as they are only speculating on the land asset. There are entire blocks in London which fit that category but its an issue on a smaller scale across the country.

What you have done is illegal.

You deserve every consequence that comes your way.

Just leave them be you’ve spectacularly fucked up. They are paying their rent. Be grateful for small mercies and think of Plan B.
There is always a way round it to a Plan B remortgage it up to the eyeballs
And then if it does turn to custard fundamentally, it’s the Bank’s problem not yours

Not sure that circumvent the need for the checks.

That still up for debate

How are they going to move into the property themselves??

"Just an oversight" isn't really an excuse when it comes to the failure to comply with basic legal requirements.

I'm afraid rogue landlords really aren't going to get a lot of sympathy when it is their own cavalier attitude towards the law that has rendered them unable to use the law against their tenants.

Live and learn.

Doesn't seem that strange to me - I expect restaurants I eat in to have all the relevant foods safety certificates but I don't have these in my own kitchen.

@AlltheHedgehogsontheWall Of course, no sympathy was expressed for the people who had to fix the damage and replace the fixtures and fittings, tear up all the carpets due to being ruined by pet waste, deal with the bailiffs for the previous tenants due to the unpaid debts (he clearly hadn't bothered to run credit checks before letting) and undo the bizarre "decorating" and dodgy that had been done. AKA us

DId you and your surveyor not see the house before buying and did your solicitor not tell you it was tenanted and put appropriate clauses in the contract regarding state of the property on handover?

Shame on you for being a bad landlord. I don’t think you deserve any sympathy. You’ve failed in your duties which ensure property is safe and now you’re reaping the consequences. I’m pleased that legislation is now finally kicking dodgy landlords

OP, find a local Estate/Letting Agent and ask them for some advice , they should know the rules inside out and might be able to advise you on how to proceed.

Also, join NRLA for help and advice.

Unfotunately as you have not done things properly, all you can do is get advice on how to get the tenant out

Have you ever lived in the Property? If so you may be able to use Ground 1.

The issue any LL in this situation faces is they have broken law, failure to have a Gas safety check down yearly is a £6k fine and potentially prison.

Any tenant faced with court action, my decide to report and even if they didn't, the LLs lack of certification will be bought up.

I'd be finding them somewhere live and paying them compensation too.

Yes, we did, however, with a house full of adults and children (and no pets in sight at the time) I did not notice the state of the carpets. We were aware it was tenanted and were told that they would be moving out in early May- in the end we were not able to complete until late July.

We did contact the solicitor to notify them about the missing fixtures and fittings but the landlord didn't respond to any emails from them and our only option would have been to take him to court, which was not what we needed when we'd just bought our first house.

Most of the damage was done when they moved out, so after we'd already agreed to the purchase- we weren't aware that the relationship between tenant and Landlord was so acrimonious at this point that they would deliberately trash the place before leaving.

We also weren't aware that the tenants were heavily in debt and continued to use our address for taking out more credit after leaving!

I don’t have a hygiene certificate to verify I am safe to cook dinner for my own family but if I’d need one if I was selling food to the public. Same difference.

As I understand it there’s no requirement to have Gas Safety Cert etc to use any section 8 grounds currently.

Maybe this will change, given that the invalidation of S21s has been a pretty significant incentive for LLs to make sure they are compliant (though not in all cases, as OP clearly demonstrates).

I suppose mandatory registration on the database could provide an enforcement tool that means the indirect threat of invalidating possession claims is no longer needed?