Due to hand back rental we have departed on Friday, too sick to empty house, how to pay rent and how much?

[KievLoverTwo]

We gave notice around 8th Oct to leave on 15th Nov; on 12th Oct got keys to new house (hundreds of miles away), moved out straight away. Slowly been emptying the old house (5-10 hour round trips + packing, loading, unloading), due back one final time next week but the OH has now been very sick for four days and I just can't risk it. He was sick in September with similar symptoms and it lasted almost a month. Slightly different symptoms this time and other complaints also in the mix but he's basically been ill on and off since the day we picked up keys to the new place and done half a dozen journeys in amongst really struggling with copious amounts of pain. Oh - and I have M.E., so I've been fully loading, unloading and setting up home and shifting it all around on my own because he's been incapacitated. With M.E. Ha. Much fun. Anyway, the new symptoms aren't just pain. They're the sort that could cause him to black out at the wheel. And I don't drive. And I'm not physically capable of doing that journey on public transport. And there are no nearby friends to pack stuff up and send a man in a van. It's only one more van load - it's pretty frustrating.

I'm almost certainly going to end up taking this former landlord to court at some point in the future so I need whatever we do regarding rent to absolutely on the straight and narrow. Rent needs to be paid in advance, it's usually paid on the 15th. So, if we can't clear out by Friday, is the legally correct thing to do to pay an entire month's rent, and advise the keys will be handed back 15th Dec?

I assume if I do that and we clear out in a fortnight, that's just our tough luck - we're not entitled to any of it back?

The house is not habitable for various reasons but that doesn't really matter, that's a whole other story. What matters most is that I keep my nose absolutely clean, even if I can't live in her house and I've been paying double rent and utilities for almost 5 weeks and have to keep on doing it. No doubt a court would say 'but rent was due for a month, not a fortnight, so you broke the terms of the lease' - right?

Of course, I'd prefer to pay her a week or a fortnight at a time, but I'd rather pay too much and suck it up and know she doesn't have a single thing on me legally than do the wrong thing (pay a week/fortnight at a time) and risk a court case failing.

Google is NOT my friend on this. Please advise if you have direct experience of this or know what the legal precedents are, thank you.

Tenants don’t have to leave when the fixed term expires. They can choose to let the tenancy run on as a periodic tenancy, rather than sign another fixed term. Except op has given a month's notice. However you are correct that possession cannot be enforced without a court order. It might be possible to request the weekend if noone is cleaning or taking over immediately but that is up to ll and may not help you much.

As others have said your contract lasts until 15th Nov. You cannot unilaterally decide to stay another month and pay until the 15th Dec unless you have this specific agreement with the landlord. Without that information there is not a lot you can do but make sure you vacate in 5 days, either by hiring a man with a van or doing it yourself. You will also need to do an end of tenancy clean. I know this is not ideal judging by your current circumstances but that is not the fault of the landlord (however badly maintained the house is etc).

Unless you can sort out an extension of the tenancy for a month then in reality you have no other option to vacate and hand the keys back.

Unless you can sort out an extension of the tenancy for a month then in reality you have no other option to vacate and hand the keys back.

There is another option, which would be to accept legal liability for loss caused to the landlord by trespass once the tenancy has ended. That might not be so bad if it's the cost of emptying the place out and cleaning. It might be astronomical if the landlord has new tenants due to move in immediately who have to be be found alternative accomodation at short notice, or builders lined up to start work who get cancelled.

Is it actually physically impossible to get there using transport options? There’s not much of the UK you can’t get to via a mix of train/taxi or coach.

Your options are basically either find a way there and get it packed up yourself, and then get a man in a van to transport it either the whole way to the new property, or to a storage unit that you can return to once your DH is recovered.

Or suck up the costs for packers and movers that you courier the key to and just get them to sort the whole lot.

Both seem more sensible financially than paying extra rent, and I doubt leaving your stuff in the house for an undisclosed amount of time is going to be a feasible option for the landlord who is no doubt going to want new tenants in asap if they don’t already have them lined up.

I second the suggestion to arrange for professional packers. We moved internationally and packers packed up our entire 4 bedroom house in one day

Use that money on removal company and cleaners.

Agree with everyone else - pay packers and shippers to get everything out.

Why didn’t you move properly in one go last month? Recalling back and forth 10 hour trips is a huge amount of work. Knowing you have health issues you’ve planned this terribly.

Send the keys to a removal company, get them to pack it up and transport to you. It will cost you but it’s costing you to do it your way.

Would your landlord agree to extend the notice date by one or two weeks? Although you don't know for certain you would be able to move then. Employing a removal company would be cheaper. Either to pack everything for you or you travel back by public transport to pack up.

Surely another months rent will cost more than finding a local man with van/movers who could collect keys from you, pack and move the stuff?
If you have given notice to leave and then don't return keys I'm not sure of the legalities but would imagine nothing stopping landlord changing locks and paying to have the house cleared which would probably be taken from your deposit

If you have vacated the house and are no longer living there, but have left possessions behind I’d expect the landlord will enter and take possession.

He cannot just get rid of your stuff (The Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977) he has to give reasonable notice and he can charge you for its storage. If you don’t collect your things after 21 days he can sell it to recoup costs.

I’ve had a local removals firm with 2 transits move me 5 hours away. It would be cheaper than rent. although they won’t pack for you. Stay away from any of the big ones like Pickfords and look for a local firm.

🤨 the last time I moved with 2 transits - and 0.5km away- it cost £3.5k

I’m assuming there isn’t much there to be collected, but it’s potentially not much cheaper than rent.

Baffling why you didn't employ a removals company from the beginning.

You will need to employ one now and fast.

The tenant has given notice and is no longer resident. She has moved out, notice cannot be rescinded therefore the tenancy comes to an end on the 15th. I'm not sure what planet you're on but this is nothing to do with the fixed term.

Sorry for radio silence yesterday. Rent is 1.6k and a last minute removals firm would probably cost 3-4k so no, I don’t think it would be cheaper, it’s really good to know you can get them to do that, I had no idea you could just courier keys in dire straits.

But it wouldn’t work. We are already paying a house clearance specialist to remove 80% of our furniture that we cannot fit in the new house because all we could find to move to is massively smaller and if I sent a removals firm in to remove the 20% of belongings we have left that we actually want to bring (one van load), the two of them would get confused and our stuff that we need may end up in landfill. There is not a good enough phone signal at the house for me to talk either party through it.

We can’t get it all taken to a local storage place because the weather between the two locations which includes driving over mountains is getting horrific and it would be a logistical and time nightmare getting rid of it from that point on. Well, we could - but I don’t want to. I just want to be done with the house.

Yes the tenancy is periodic and no to whoever said it’s 28 days notice. We gave her over a month as a courtesy because she panicked, she thought it would be 2-3 months. She is fully paid up.

Yes we have done everything right with the tenancy and no, she has not, and no, relations with her are not good so there is no point trying to negotiate.

Cleaning is sorted, we already agreed to pay her to get her cleaner in.

No she does not have a tenant lined up. It needs work. She hasn’t asked for access and I made it clear that if she did, she’d have a hard time renting it in the current state of disarray it is in.

She doesn’t even have a key anyway. God only knows what she ever planned to do if there was an emergency whilst we are away.

Anyway, despite all the above and partly due to your advice, the other half seems determined to push through his illness and get it all done this week. So he’s now trying to plan journeys where he is physically able to pull over and stop every twenty minutes if necessary. He already had the week booked off and we already had a van booked for Tues-Fri.

Check back at the end of the week. If we manage to get it all out with our lives intact I will let you know!

Thankfully he did appear a bit better yesterday. I think whatever has been brewing for a fornight (which was causing him to almost fall asleep at the wheel after a good night’s sleep last week and horrible fevers for the last four days) may now have broken and the worst of it may hopefully have passed. He still has no appetite by his symptoms are calming. So he may have recovered enough just in the nick of time.

Thanks for all your suggestions. The main thing I needed to know is that the law really wouldn’t have been on our side whatsoever. So, come hell or highwater, she will get her keys back on Friday.

You have left this to the very last minute

Can you not hire a man with a van and pay them extra to pack it up too? Have you tried posting your job on something like tasrabbit or rated.com? Or posting on a local Facebook page asking for recommendations for a man with a van that would also pack up the belongings?

Thanks for the helpful update. Hope it all works out. Would strongly recommend your OH pays some able bodied person to accompany him. Keep him alert and help at the other end. Shouldn’t be too much £.

Try anyvan.com for a 'man with a van' to do the driving and lifting. You / both of you can travel by public transport and supervise. This will be much cheaper than professional movers.

Well if you can’t just get a local man with a van or packers (don’t see why they would get confused - they are professionals, just give them a list. Or get them to text you a photo of each room and then you text back instructions), then I personally would cut my losses, hand over everything to the house clearance people who you have already arranged to come in, and use the £1.6k you were putting aside for rent to buy any new furniture you need.
I personally would choose that over having my unwell DH drive 10 hours and do a load of heavy lifting whilst at risk of blacking out at the wheel.
The furniture is just stuff and can be replaced.

That’s a good idea. Worst case we could maybe ask the house clearance guys to help us load and bung them an extra few hundred pounds. Brilliant idea in fact. It’s amazing how common sense leaves you when you are stressed.

I am nervously awaiting him getting up to see what condition he is in today!

Oh, and to the person who asked why we didn’t just get a removals firm on day 1: we are losing 50% of space. M.E. is a sod. Imagine telling a 70 year old with lower body arthritis, very little physical strength AND the flu that you are moving her from a 3000 sq ft house to one half the size which is FURNISHED and she will just have to figure out how to clamber over and move all her stuff, and that’s pretty close to what I would have had to deal with. It had to be done gradually otherwise I would be crippled and end up in a big M.E. crash.

I never could have possibly anticipated the other half being incapacitated for a good 70% of it. If I had even an inkling that was likely, I would have moved the entire shooting match to many storage units at our new destination, and dealt with getting our stuff into the new house bit by bit.

As it is I am literally sending 5k’s worth of stuff to landfill! Well, paying someone to do that o_o

We don’t have access to take photos or videos without him having to do that drive anyway. We are already paying them to take away all our furniture. What is left is purely personal possessions. The ones we couldn’t let go of. And he doesn’t want to.

Thank you!

You’ve just made everything so much more stressful than it needed to be by planning to do a huge round trip over multiple journeys back & forth. Unnecessarily stressful even if your OH hadn’t got ill.

You knew the new house was a lot smaller. A removals firm could have moved all your stuff in one or two days when you moved out. Some to the new house, some to a storage facility and some to be destroyed/recycled.

Nothing you can do about it now but maybe useful to reflect for next time you move. Especially as you have ME so your partner & you need to organise things to be as stress free as possible next time even if that option costs more money.