Inherited a potentially costly issue

[WillimNot]

Hello
I'm very new to all this so hoping someone knowledgeable may be able to offer wisdom

We have taken on a tenancy for a business which is also our new home. On site is a small outbuilding that some time in the late 90s was turned into small bed and breakfast rooms.

There are 5 rooms, each around 10ft square and each has a small bathroom with WC and bath.

The agreement with the last tenant (as with all) was to use these as either B&B accomodation or more recently hot desking/temp offices. However, last tenant was a huge bloody prat devoid of braincells ignorant of rules, regs or his tenancy and has allowed people to live in each room.

None has a tenancy. There are no cooking facilities. No laundry facilities. The building is in quite a sorry state with rubbish in the halls, the place is stinky as hell and has some damp issues. It could very easily be turned around back into B&B, which we look forward to doing.

The people we rent the site from have taken charge and gave them 2 weeks to get out. Their legal team say as they're not tenants with tenancies and nothing is registered as HMO or anything else, they have no implied rights.

Now, that two weeks lapsed last week and we and the company we rent from have booked builders and such to look at the site. The utilities have been switched off because they've been deemed a risk already in the block.

All but one room has emptied out, they were fine with it, totally understood and off they went.

One has refused to go. He has not until yesterday spoken to us, leaving and returning under cover of darkness.

We got a call, quite accusatory from a housing needs person at our local council. This lady didn't even know our names and thought we were the old tenant. She has also been told he is living in a bedsit with shared kitchen. I tried to be polite and said she needed to do due diligence. Perhaps instead of calling to call me a "slum landlord" (her actual words) she may wish to fully investigate.

In her view he is a tenant, I pointed out he has no tenancy, the building is not registered as a letting property of any kind, and no money has been given to us. We've said the building has no utilities as these have been damaged by the occupants or the old tenant of the business and we have had no such issues with the rest of the occupants.

Where do we stand? I don't want to be taken to court for a building we didn't allow people to live in, we also don't have the funds to take this guy to court. He can't be given a section 21 or whatever as that implies he is a tenant with rights but he admitted to the woman at the council he has not and has never had a tenancy agreement, just the old tenant said he could live there for a bit and he paid him "sometimes". He also told her he was only told the day he phoned them to leave. She was incredibly threatening in the call.

So help please. In my view he is a squatter but I don't want to get a rep locally as some awful person who moves in and turfs someone out. He has now asked us to write him a letter to give the council but I've refused, saying he should take the notice letter he was given in May. He reckons he can't, probably because he lied and said he got one day warning. He isn't actually staying at the building as there's no electricity or gas so he clearly has somewhere to go.

Help!

OP you are not the landlord of the property, you are a tenant yourself. it is the responsibility of the landlord that you are renting the business from to ensure all the site is available to you with vacant possession at the time your tenancy started.
So refer the person at the council to the owners of the site and clearly inform her that you are the tenants and not the owner / landlord.

That's what I thought was the case.

Luckily the owner (or their employee, it's a brewery) has already contacted the council but they still also contacted us and demanded to visit site and such. They were told we'd been being paid by this guy. It's utter rubbish

The brewery didn't actually know there were people living in there, the previous person disappeared and they had to seize the site back and that's when they found out.

Their view is the remaining guy is squatting illegally, and they will be changing locks and removing his stuff.

I just hope it doesn't get round as if we've done any of it as obviously, this is a new business for us and a huge opportunity, we don't want any negativity before we've even opened.

I do sympathise but I would try and get a letter that helps this guy because then he'll leave. He's wanting a homeless letter so the council will house him. I wouldn't want to be responsible for putting someone on the street. I'd simply put in a letter that you can confirm that he's homeless as the previous owner allowed him to stay with no real tenancy & that you were unaware of this.
There's no arrangement but I wouldn't want to just turf him out he's probably got nowhere to go

We've already provided him with a letter which he won't give them, probably as he has lied about exactly when he was given notification to leave.

We now have the issue that we can't move forward with work, which puts us at financial risk because when the work was done this would easily cover a lot of costs at the main business, that was how the whole thing was sold to us.

We have now gone back to our financial advisor who is angry as effectively the contract we have is nul and void because what was promised has now been changed. Our financial projections are vastly wrong.

He is now going back to them to find out what they plan to do about it.

I do sympathise with the person but would be more sympathetic if he hadn't lied to the council and been so ignorant of the situation. He failed to do anything to help himself.

If he is squatting then you need baliffs to remove him.
It's not your job to do this but the actual owner.

I sympathise with you I totally get that your projections are wrong. Could you rescind the contract because you're not getting what was agreed?
I understand that this guy isn't your responsibility but I do still feel bad for people in that position I'm sure he has a complex story.

I’d walk away from the tenancy. The brewery that is leasing you the property has mis-sold the tenancy. They owe you any costs you have incurred. The contract is null and void. The person who is a victim of the prior tenant doing an illegal sublet is nothing to do with you. I think the brewery is overly harsh to call them a “squatter” - squatters just move in without any permission from anyone. The council is right this person has some rights as they were mis-sold a sublet by the prior tenant. This is a huge legal mess and I would just walk away and have my legal advisor file for compensation from the brewery owner of the property. They should have done due diligence and ensured the property was fit to be handed over to you as a new tenant. They failed horribly.

We've already provided him with a letter which he won't give them

A letter from you means diddly squat, you’re not the owner of the property or the prior tenant who agreed on the sublet with him (which he had no way to know was an illegal sublet). There is no contract real or implied between you and him.

I would think the council told him a letter from you is meaningless.

This is what our financial advisor has told us that currently the contract is not worth the paper it's written on and he's currently redoing all the figures with a view to calling a meeting

We don't want to leave, we can see a huge potential with the place and so if they can sort the issues out we will stay, but we will have to say we are considering walking away as the contract is voided.

The brewery is currently discussing with solicitors on bailiff orders, the letter was from them with their heading on but mentioned us.

From what I can gather, he has additional issues so he is possibly more likely to be housed as a vulnerable adult

Your financial advisor is a good one. I would only say, think with your head and not your heart. There are many properties on the market with loads of potential - ones that don’t have the headache of a negligent landlord.

I could not lease a property from this brewery owner as they have literally proven themselves to be incompetent at best or an unethical slumlord at worst. The council wasn’t wrong about that even though they were mistaken about your involvement in it.

I would worry this would be only the first headache of many. What else might rear its ugly head about the property once work gets underway? How much money have you lost to these delays already?

I don't know how any of this works so forgive me if this is a daft question - if he is coming and going under cover of darkness can't you just stage a stake out and as soon as he goes change the locks!??!

Just walk away.

Not a good idea. If he breaks in, then OP could be liable for the property damage by having locked him out when OP has no legal right to do so as a 3rd party.

OP isn’t his landlord or the owner of the property. The OP is not yet the legal tenant of the property- and they should not agree to take possession until he is off the property.

It’s best OP just stay out of it. The sitting tenant (via illegal sublet) is the brewery owner’s and council’s problem, not the OP’s problem.

Oh I'd completely missed the part where she isn't the owner....! Soz. Long day, it started with a dog vomiting in the middle of the night and not enough coffee!!

It’s ok :) easy to do on threads. Hope your dog isn’t too poorly

Yes we are the pub equivalent of tenants

We can't unfortunately change the locks, that was what the brewery wanted to do until their legal person told them under no circumstances do so.

Our solicitor has said it's a grey area, technically he has no legal rights to stay, he isn't a tenant, he has no paperwork or proof of rent (apparently he was paying cash to the previous operator before we got here).

It will probably mean he isn't afforded the same rights regards eviction, because with a tenancy he would be entitled to an eviction hearing then to wait for a bailiff order. Because he cannot prove anything regards rent or a spoken agreement, he has been had.

Our issue is one of the things we know about the place here is there was a lot of antisocial behaviour before, which put people off coming. I'm currently in a huge positive PR spin, going out and meeting locals as I'm visible round the building. We've had a lot of positive feedback and reaction.

We have lost time because we cannot empty the annexe and do it up as we need to because we need him out to do work on some leaks coming from his room, there is a smashed window in his room, roof tiles above that need fixing, and in general, it will be difficult to have a B&B in the remaining rooms whilst he is there because, to put it as politely as possible, his hygiene is non-existent and you can smell the room before you get near it.

We had the gas and electric looked at and that's all sorted but it just annoys me because it was all meant to be sorted and now we have the council sniffing around. They phoned again today to complain that we have put a chain up across the car park at night. We've done that because people were dumping crap in our skip and because one of the main doors to the building is not secure. It doesn't stop him leaving because DH opens it at 7.30 when he drives the DCs to school, and the squatter doesn't leave until after 7.30, it's not locked again until 10pm. It just feels like he wants our help yet keeps causing agro! You'd think he would be polite and unassuming.

You are blaming the wrong person. This man cannot just leave as he would be classed as intentionally homeless. The council will have advised him to stay until evicted.

You need to be angry with your landlord.

I'm not angry with him, I just don't understand why he had a letter and decided to leave it until the day after he was meant to leave before he called the council, why he is about dates and other things and why he wasn't more proactive. He has a letter, the same as others, on the same day. The letter gave advice on next steps. He decided it didn't apply to him only and he still hasn't given the council the letter because obviously they would then know he lied. I sent the council a copy of the letter and the woman there said she wouldn't accept it from me as I could've doctored or just produced it on that day. Bloody ridiculous attitude. I asked had he accounted for a letter proving he was only given a days notice and she said no he hasn't. Yet she's happy to believe him.

At the end of the day, who takes a tiny room with no tenancy, no deposit, no kitchen or anything? And then to be shocked when it turns out none of it is legal. He's clearly a bit dim isn't he?

Apparently he was one of the bigger sources of trouble previously too so we want him gone because we are trying to turn the place around.

The brewery have tried to be fair, saying they have somewhere he can store his belongings, he's only here recently on one or two nights so he obviously has somewhere to stay.

He also told the council he offered us £1000 last week and we apparently took £800 of it. Nothing of the sort happened. DH met him once but certainly didn't take any money off him (and that was prior to last week) but I haven't. He's a chancer frankly.

Hope it gets sorted soon, I’m assuming your landlord is getting a court order to be able to legally remove the squatter? If not, why haven’t they done that yet?

At the end of the day, who takes a tiny room with no tenancy, no deposit, no kitchen or anything? And then to be shocked when it turns out none of it is legal. He's clearly a bit dim isn't he?

He sounds quite vulnerable and desperate imho. The housing crisis is bad enough that homeless people are living in garden sheds on illegal under the table tenancies.

Well the brewery have confirmed that their legal team are of the opinion that he has no legal rights and as such, without a tenancy or anything saying he has rights to be there, they will be applying to court to seize the building, much as they did when the previous people went missing from the pub.

They've spoken to a housing specialist who said in legal terms, if he had a deposit and tenancy they would need to go through the usual section 21, court, bailiff order rigmarole, as he doesn't his rights are limited.

I had yet another call from the frankly ignorant housing person and I explained to her that I've moved in and have had to deal with a number of inherited issues. I've pointed out that she has been entirely ignorant and one sided when I've tried to send her information, she has actively called me a liar and a slum landlord, and she has decided he is the one hard done by. He is, but not by me, and not by the brewery.

She got quite abusive at that point so I said at this point I would like your boss to call me please, she refused so I asked for the name of her boss and she gave me that.

I called them back, explained what has happened, and she asked me to send her copies of the actual notice and letters. I did so and she got straight back to me, and has now updated his file. I found out he had lied and lied, saying he received texts demanding cash, that he was told the day he phoned them to leave, all from a phone number that doesn't belong to any of us. I asked why then did her colleague call my DHs number and she didn't link that the numbers were different. I was told she gets "passionate" about potential homelessness and that they don't have much temp accommodation now because it's spoken for to help with homing migrants here so there is "pressure" to keep a person where they are and avoid homes being needed.

I did sympathise but said the fact is he has nothing from us. She agreed that when he said he had no tenancy the colleague should've told him that means the usual legal channels don't apply.

Hopefully it can be sorted but she was going to call him and tell him he has lied and he needs to go and see her for an interview regards what of any help they can offer. He's not been in site for about 3 days now so hopefully he has got the hint

Ofc their legal team are going to argue that, it’s their job to defend their client.
Whether or not he does is up to the court to decide.

You are better off well out of this, it really isn’t your affair and I would not be doing any favours for either side.