Hi, I wondered if someone with the relevant knowledge could give me some advise.
My partner and I moved into our current rented house in August 2013. At the time I know the landlord was willing to consider families, young professionals or students. The house is a detached 3 bed bungalow in a suburban area. We were on a 6 month lease with a monthly rolling contract, so the landlord would now have to give us 2 months notice to leave.
Anyway, now I'm pregnant and due in September so we need to consider what to do about the house. It says in our contract:
[The tenant agrees to] Not allow children to live in the Property, without the Landlord’s consent, which will not be unreasonably withheld.
I wondered if someone could clarify the meaning of "which will not be unreasonably withheld" line for me? I looked on google and it seemed like that meant that a decision by him to withhold consent could be contested by us as unreasonable.
I could understand if we suddenly wanted to move in a huge mob of older children that this might be unreasonable, but I can't see any more of a reasonable situation for wanting to "move in" a child other than me being pregnant. The property is detached so the baby crying shouldn't disturb any neighbours, and he will be a newborn so won't be scribbling on walls any time soon (we will probably be gone by the time he is a toddler).
We haven't asked for consent yet. Can anyone advise me on whether the landlord would be able to withhold consent on this?
Also, it is my understanding (based on the CAB website) that we wouldn't be able to be evicted for me being pregnant alone because of the 2010 equality act (there is no ban on pregnant women living in the property!), so if consent was withheld then he wouldn't be able to ask us to leave until the baby was born anyway. Does anyone know if this is correct?
Ideally we would like to stay in the house because it is a good size for a young family (in fact, it has seemed a bit big for just the two of us)! It wouldn't be the end of the world if we had to move but obviously it would be inconvenient. We have to move around more regularly than the average person for my DP's work (he is an academic and permanent posts are unusual in the early years of your career), so buying is off limits to us for the time being.
Thanks in advance for replies!