AIBU to end a tenancy so my niece can live there?

[SunnyDaysAndCoolNights]

We have a house that we rent out to a family with 2 children who have been in the house for about 7 years. The house is in the same city that our niece is at university in.

Just after Xmas, my niece asked us if she could live in the house for her second and third year at uni, (possibly longer) as the houses she had looked at weren’t very nice and she can’t stay in halls.

After speaking to my husband, we decided to say yes and we gave our tenants a section 21 notice in February. Our tenants were/are not happy and have been advised to stay in the house by the council. We thought that may happen which is why we served the notice in February despite my niece not needing the house until September. We were also aware of the new rules coming in soon which would make it harder to end a tenancy.

Since finding out that we have ended the tenancy for our current tenants, my brother and his wife (not nieces parents) have told us that we are ‘typical arsehole landlords’ for ‘kicking out a family’. They think our niece, also their niece is selfish for asking, that she could have found somewhere herself and that we should have put our tenants first as they have been our tenants for quite a long time and they have children. My brother and his wife rent with their children, so obviously that may play a part in their feelings on this. I feel upset they would say these things as I think it’s normal to put your own family first. My other brother and his wife who are parents of my niece are very annoyed at our other brother and his wife.

Would you have done the same as we have or would you have put the tenants first and said no to your niece? I do have sympathy for my tenants, they’re a nice family and have been good tenants, but obviously we love our niece and to us, she comes first.

We've already understood that your niece is entitled, autism doesn't negate other negative personal traits. Doesn't mean you have to accomodate the princess' demands and make a family homeless.

How do you sleep at night?

Can't see why you posted as you've obviously made up your mind that you're in the right! Not rtwt but if the evicted family can't find a new place, and are advised to stay put (and withhold rent) will you still be ok financially? Can take months and £££ to successfully evict....

Actually you're right. The dwp would see it as a contrived tenancy but she's not eligible for housing element obviously as she's a student, she's going to have to pay the rent and bills from her maintenance loan.

Arsehole move

What would your niece have done if you didn’t have a house for her to rent?

Why start the thread as you're so sure you've done the right thing?

100% a dick move to evict a family.

You have said that your niece can live with you if Tennants are not evicted by September, so why can't she just have done that anyway? One person does not need a whole FAMILY home

She should get some kind of maintenance loan as far as I'm aware but it will depend on her parents income as to how much she actually gets.

Good question!

I can see both sides however you’ve got non problematic long term tenants who would be happy to stay vs

• niece who may drop out of uni early
• niece who may be less reliable with rent paying due to the knowledge her aunt won’t turf her out
• niece who may decide she hates living in the house alone, and want to move friends or a partner in, who may not be as respectful or just not pay rent, and you find yourself in an unwanted HMO landlord situation with a revolving door of tenants that you don’t know
• niece who, after living in a nice house below market rent for two years, may be reluctant to leave when finishing uni as she won’t find anything else of the same standard for that price
• neice who, at 19 years old, may struggle with the basics of keeping a whole house in decent condition
• if she were to fall pregnant whilst living there, you may find yourself feeling obligated to continue housing her long term and unable to sell basically ever

So I just think you need to consider all eventualities here

Stayed in halls or in a less nice area I assume

Giving this some appreciation before it gets deleted 👏👏👏

If all that's the case, then why's she on Mumsnet asking 'AIBU'? She knows she is.

You are morally an awful person.

Good tenants are hard to find - do everything to keep them!
Also don’t mix business and family, this is how relationships break down.

I wouldn’t do what you have done.

Perhaps her parents are paying.

Firstly, I am not anti landlord. In fact, DH and I are looking to invest in a buy to let. However, evicting a family with two small kids in the midst of the COL for no real good reason seems like something only someone with no empathy or conscience could do.

I hope for your sake karma isn’t real OP!

@SunnyDaysAndCoolNights is there anyway you can go back on this and make it right?

Are you really happy with the decision you have made, really? Would you be happy if your children were treated this way?

Yeah it’s pretty disgusting that you’d rather make children homeless than let your niece be slightly out of her comfort zone.

And you’re doing your niece a disservice imo. She needs to learn some resilience or she going to crash and burn once she actually has to stand on her own two feet.

This. I don't get the anger? I rented and a few times the landlord would let me know they wouldn't renew the contract so I had to move somewhere else. Not ideal but thats what happens? People calling PP selfish and cruel is a bit much

As a landlord of 15 years I think this is not only morally a nasty thing to do, but also a pretty stupid one. Not something I would do in a million years.

I am a landlord x 3, and I find MN extremely anti-LL (to the point of actual comedy, sometimes). I also have an autistic child.

However, I think you are 100% in the wrong to do this. The rental market is dire, the children will be in a local school and after 7 years, this will be their home. It is far, far more realistic to find your niece a ND-friendly alternative than it is for your poor tenants to find alternative accomodation within a reasonable distance of their children's schools and their workplace.

I suspect this is also why they are needing to be housed by the LA, which has advised them to stay put. You will no doubt be aware of the delays in listing this type of hearing - local to me the earliest available listing date is March 2027, although it is obviously area-dependent. So you may have lost decent tenants and still have nowhere for your niece to live by September.

I think you want people to say its okay to screw tenants over because "family" but it really isn't - it's extremely poor form, and the sort of thing that justifiably gives LL's a bad name.

I would be so disappointed if one of my young adult children asked for a family to be evicted for their benefit. Really horrible behaviour/attitude.

I noticed Autism entered the chat. Well, that trumps everything, even a family with children being made homeless.

Is your niece honestly capable of running an entire household on her own? There's quiet and then there's isolated.

I think you're mad to evict good tenants, presumably if you didn't like the income you'd have sold up before.

And I think you're actually doing the niece no favours - she needs to learn how to live in the real world and living in a decent sized house on low rent isn't going to do that.

Unless you're going to drip feed that you're a family of millionaires and she'll never need to actually earn a living or worry about money?