Tenants requesting a court order!

[Emily2586]

Hi everyone,

I would really be grateful for some advice. I have a property in England which I would like to move back to. I have given the notice on time and gave my tenants 3 months to find alternative accommodation. The three months have now passed and the tenants have come back to me saying they can not find any place to rent because of their low income and is saying they would like me to start a court order so they could give a letter to the council so that they could assist them.

I wasn't expecting them to do this as I had given three months notice and I had some to them if this wasn't enough time they could let me know and it could be extended slightly to give them time to find something. I was under the impression they were finding a place to rent all this time.

The tenants have been in the property for 10 years and I have no experience of about the legal proceedings in this case. I myself have kids and need to move into this property as I am currently staying with my parents until the tenants move out and I am worried that court proceedings could cost a lot.

Could someone please kindly give any advice of what I could do.

I think you need to sort out all the issues where you and your family have dodged the law. Put all that right before you start proper eviction proceedings or you could find yourself in the shit.
Tenants are advised to stay put if they cannot get a new tenancy and you have to evict them legally, or they wont be able to access social housing. Theyre not doing it to get at you. Its literally what they have to do to prevent homelessness. It doesnt have to be expensive, but it does mean it takes a bit longer.
It sounds like your whole family have been very amateurish about being a landlord and underestimating your responsibilities. Please dont try and guilt trip your long term tenants just because they are having to go through the proper channels to protect themselves.

Morally, we shouldn't have a chronic housing problem where only the poorest and most vulnerable can get affordable, secure housing, but that's not what it's like in the real world.

Councils do this to make sure that tenants aren't just trying it on.

Put rent up to market price immediately. You have to give 1 months notice of rent increase. Look on Rightmove what similar properties are going for. This will fund your eviction. You have given them years of cheap rent and 3 months notice. They chose to repay you by refusing to move out and forcing court action at your expense. Give them a section 21 after rent increase. This way for every month they refuse to move you will be owed higher rent which will pay for eviction notice. They will have 2 month's to leave then you can get court order. If they refuse to pay higher rent you can add that to your court claim. This may motivate them to move. They only want to stay as rent so cheap. If no longer cheaper than market value they will want to move. They are taking advantage of your kindness.

@mummybearcub2022 wasn't the council that decided to sell all the housing stock at discount prices, leaving them with very little to rent for people to be homed. The same houses that are now rented at 3x the council rates by private landlords as a business

If you have not protected deposit a judge will order you to pay them 3 or 4 times the deposit. You have got to follow renting rules. Insure deposit immediately.

OP won't answer the tenancy protection scheme or any legal requirements she has or hasn't carried out.

@Isaidnoalready there's no need to quote a very long OP to reply to it, we've all read it already 😄

You’re not in a good position.
You can’t issue notice to leave if EVERYTHING you need to have in place as a landlord isn’t.
Their deposit must be protected www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection
There must be a gas safety certificate.
An EPC
An electrical safety check certificate ( I can’t remember the regs on this so look it up)
A tenancy agreement between you and tenants ( I’m not sure if the original with your sister would stand as she’s no longer the owner of the property)
If ANY of these are not in place your case will be thrown out of court and you’ll have to start again.
Contact a solicitor who is experienced in tenancy matters.
You can contact a landlords association.
Do all the research before going to court as it could cost you more than you anticipate.

Forgot —- your tenants should also have a copy of the right to rent document.
You might need a Legionalla risk assessment and fire risk assessment. ( you can do these yourself, I did though I had training in risk assessment and have a qualification certificate somewhere)
The landlord must provide smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detector/s ( one in each room where there is a risk e.g. gas boiler, log burner, gas cooker, gas fire)

Legally only a tenant or court can end a tenancy. Rents have increased ten fold recently and finding a rental is near impossible unless you have 6 months up front or are willing to pay even more rent than is being advertised.
If they can’t afford the recent increases or they aren’t having any luck finding a property then they need council assistance and trust me that’s not a walk in the park either, they’ll be shoved into a shitty temp home like a hostel for god knows how many months before even being offered a home so it’s not a choice people make willingly most of the time.
You need to get in touch with shelter or citizens advice and make sure your section 21 is legally standing as well, you need to find out what the laws are and what’s needed to ensure everything you do is above board as like I said only a court or the tenant themselves can legally end the tenancy.

Ok and everything else that I and others have listed is in order apart from the tenancy deposit in the scheme, correct? If it is, I’d run through this with a solicitor asap and raise the rent to what market rate would be for the property in its current state. You need to do it any time up to and including the day before the next rent due date and this will then take effect a month later. Let the tenants gripe and moan. Hold firm and they are likely to move on as if you’re correct in your assumption, they’re not getting a HA home any time soon so they may just leave. The extra rent will hopefully help to offset the potential fine for not protecting the deposit or eviction costs. The solicitor can also raise a section 8, which is notice of eviction.

Not judgemental at all
just because she has rented out a property doesn’t mean she has even a well off lifestyle

People are being very nasty on here, so much hate for landlords. If she's been charging low rent for years and only just covered the mortgage she's not profiting from renting it out so there's no magic money pot with all this rent in.

That's on her. There should always be a pot for maintenance. Besides, whatever else, she has to follow the law, and if the deposit isn't in a scheme, she could up shit's creek. As a tenant, I wouldn't really care why she needed the house back. If the eviction process isn't followed properly, I wouldn't move. She has to look out for herself and get legal advice, but so do the tenants.

My advice would be to spend £95 and join the NRLA - National Residential Landlord's Association. They have a free helpline you can call anytime and they are pretty knowledgeable. Helpline is 9am - 5pm Monday to Friday

Hi OP,

when you became the new landlord, did you issue a section 3 notice to the tenants informing them you are the new landlord? A section 3 notice must be served within two months following the transfer and contain the new landlord's name and address. The new landlord must serve this notice to tenants regardless of whether the previous landlord notified tenants. If no notice was served your sister may legally still be the landlord.

It sounds like you need to pay for an eviction specialist and go through everything with them. I think Landlord Action is one of the most well known in the U.K.

Op - unless you answer the questions raised how can anyone even start to help you?
Regardless, you need to get proper advice, because some of the advice you're getting isn't helpful.

This is very common now as the council require it. Puts people off renting

@Emily2586 Op get yourself on forums.landlordzone.co.uk/ and not MN also join NRLA.

As a landlord, see my username, fixing repairs is the number one priority. - no matter how low the rent is. Do you have enough money to replace the boiler if it breakdown? Don't see difference between the mortgage and rent as disposable income it isn't. Always keep enough money for repairs/boiler replacement/unpaid rent. Without that safety net you're stuffed.

Sorry to come across as harsh and unsympathetic but renting out property is a serious responsibility and there must always be money for repairs/tenants not paying their rent etc.

Get off MN join NRLA and get your paperwork in order. Firstly, find out if the deposit was protected. If it wasn't - get yourself a solicitor.

It can take around 6 - 12 months to get your property back.

Good luck.

So. Its all gone a bit "cancel the cheque" @Emily2586 You're in a right mess and you've had lots of good advice, mainly around getting good advice from a solicitor or landlords' association. You now have an overview of all your possible problems and what you need to do to get the ball rolling and resolve the situation, albeit not a quick fix.

What are you going to do now? What's your plan for tomorrow morning?

I’ve never increased the rent throughout their time as tenants as they been there for so long and they were on a low rent amount as it is for the area we are in as I felt sorry for them. The house needs major repairs

be honest. You didn’t raise the rent because the house needs “major repairs”. So your tenants were no doubt living in a shit hole

Honestly I just bloody leave them there you haven’t got legal leg to stand on by the sounds of it. If they’re paying their rent all you can do is work on future compliance ASAP but for now you need to come up with a Plan B and forget all about effect in these guys.

Sounds like you haven’t protected the deposit? That’s going to cost you. Every LL should know what legal requirements they have to meet and you seem not to have paid any attention to that at all. You’re effectively running a business and haven’t thought about what your responsibilities are. That’s not your tenants fault, it’s yours. If you didn’t charge enough to cover repairs and mortgage, that’s on you. You said ‘major repairs’. What specifically? If you don’t redecorate your property every 6 years you can’t charge the tenant for certain damage to it. Keep it in good condition, all of it.
I had a LL not protect my deposit and I took it to small claims. It’s not ok for LL’s to ignore what is legally required of them. If a tenant hands you thousands of pounds for a deposit, protect it.
You’ve already been given the correct advice regarding eviction.

Every time I would try increase the rent he would threaten to leave
So you did try to raise the rent (as opposed to your previous post where you say you felt sorry for them as on a low income)

your tenant refused because the the house, in your words, needs “major repairs”

Sorry OP but classic drip feed. You thought that everyone would say "how terrible, bad tenants, throw them out tomorrow" and they didn't.

If you are this clueless I suggest you ask your parents to pay for a solicitor. How on earth could they have just taken the house off your sister and given it to you? It makes no sense. Who has land registry rights?

Do you even have a tenancy agreement? My landlord is great and we resign every year. He has also not hugely increased our rent since we moved in but any rise he will discuss with us. He also asks every six months if any repairs are needed.

As for "they break things" they've lived there ten years and it sounds like you have little idea of your obligations. Do you have safety certs? Probably not.

As for their vehicles, what business is that of yours? Do you expect them to sleep in these cars?

Face facts, you've done next to nothing to cover your obligations as a landlord and now you face the possibility of it being raised in court which is up to them and is their right. Frankly it sounds like you will end up more than paying for their new home due to being so uninformed. And you've no excuse, why take something on without researching first? A court will not care about your ignorance. The rules scant as they are are there for a reason.

And whether you went to tell them or not means nothing. They still end up without a home.

Quite simply OP
You should not be a landlady.

Agreed @Razzle5