Landlords - can letting agents issue a new tenancy agreement to the tenant without your knowledge or permission?

[DancingOnTheTable]

I'll try to keep this a simple as possible.

I own a house that is very far away (other end of the country, in England) we specifically wanted a long term tenant that would look after the house well so we were very involved with the process of selecting a tenant but left all the formalities to the estate agents as they would be handling the day to say running or the letting.

It's been several years and we have found out completely by accident that the tenant is no longer in the situation she was in before, she has moved a partner in and had another child, she has several dogs and cats and is running a business out of the house.
Some of it I don't mind about, but others I'm less happy about.

I contacted the EA to see if they knew about any of it and they confirmed that they did, and that they had given the tenant a new tenancy agreement which names her partner as a joint tenant and also mentions her being allowed the pets and to run her business in the house, the tenancy is also for substantially longer than the original one (which was initially supposed to with be renewed annually or go onto a rolling monthly contract)

I'm very unhappy. The EA have said they think I'm over reacting.

Can they really issue a new tenancy agreement, particularly to a new person with clauses that I did not approve?

The EA have said that I basically have to like it or lump it because I can't ask the tenant to leave until the TA is up.

I had my appointment with the solicitor, he is going to write to the EA and the tenant and try to establish why this TA was drawn up without my knowledge (and if there is anything shady about it)

He said it is an unusual situation, on the face of it the tenant has a valid TA, however the contract I have with the EA was only for the management of the property during the original tenancy, the EA do not have the authority to sign on my behalf so it looks like the TA will probably be invalid.
He said if we went to court they would probably rule that the new TA is invalid and that the tenant has been on a rolling contract for the original TA.

This morning I also had a reply from the manager of the EA, she said she can see why I would be upset but she thinks I'm overreacting somewhat over a simple admin error.

She also said "if it is so important to you I will send you a copy of the tenancy agreement for you to sign then you will have nothing to worry about."

I told her I did not give permission for any of the things in the TA so there is no way I will be signing anything or agreeing to anything and that I am seeking legal advice.

I'm not sure wether I should contact the tenant or not, I want to know if this was a mistake or is she was somehow in on this deception, although I think I want her to leave now regardless.

Speaking as a tenant of many years (and we've moved a lot so have had to deal with a lot of TAs), your tenant will very unlikely have had anything to do with it. She may have asked the agent if they could have pets and that's it. She'll just have taken the EA at face value when presented with the new TA. Very odd that they signed for you though if you didn't give your permission. That isn't standard at all. We've had tenancies fully managed by agents and have still had to wait weeks for the TA to be signed by the landlord before. Very odd. Sounds like they're a shoddy outfit and are used to getting away with it.

Wow what a mess! What a totally inept agent!

Glad your legal advice DancingOnTheTable was that a court is likly to find she is still on the original AST.

Do you have any legal cover with your landlord insurance?

I think I would issue notice (as per the original AST and then go after the agency for any damages e.g. due to pets but this is likely to be time consuming and and expensive if they fight it .

Just shows that the agents don't know what they are doing. It's not uncommon, but usually means they end up doing things which disadvantage the tenant and treat the tenant poorly rather than the landlord.

The manager sounds rather dim.

If you contact the tenant, why not do it from the pov of finding out what they asked for and what the agent said to them and that you are concerned that there are issues with the tenancy as the agents didn't have authority to act as they did. You can mention that, as she knows, you gave permission for them to have a rabbit but you said no to them having a dog and what was said about that apparent change of mind.

I wouldn't have thought she would have been part of it, but she knew there was no way I would allow her to have dogs/cats in the house, we discussed it at length before and after she moved in and I made it very clear i would not allow it, now she has four dogs and at least two cats (according to her Facebook page).

was that a court is likly to find she is still on the original AST.
Yes that is what I meant, sorry if I was unclear.

I do have legal cover with my LL insurance, but I'm pretty sure my insurance is invalid since she is running a business in the house, so I don't think if I'd be able to claim.

That's s good idea WowFudge I think I will ring her this evening.

I hope she is not involved but my gut feeling is that she may be.
She had a previous relationship with the EA, she was living in another of their properties before she moved into mine and they recommended her as a good tenant when she applied for the house, they said she's never been a problem etc, so maybe someone there knew here more than they let on.

It's such a nuisance, I though renting it out for a while to a good tenant would be easy but it's so stressful.

dancing this sounds so stressful. We had a similar issue when I rented out a property while I was working in another city hundreds of miles away for a year. I ended up flying home and landing in on their office on a Monday morning when they stopped replying to my emails and fibbing me off on the phone. For peace of mind you at the very least need to change agent as your confidence in them is now well and truly broken.
The insurance invalidatio due to the home business and the alterations to the property is a massive red flag. You need to contact your insurance company and advise them if the situation. It may we'll be that they can provide you cover it your premium will increase, if that's the case I'd be expecting the agent to pay to cover the extra cost in the short term till you instruct a new agent and then pass that cost along to the tenant when you renegotiate their rent

Wow dancing what a situation, I'm glad the solicitors appointment was positive. I also think you should contact your insurance, but from the perspective of informing them that you will be making a claim for legal costs and updating them on the situation. My understanding is that they can't invalidate your insurance over a genuine error on your part, and at this point, when you've only just found out about the business being run from the property there is no question that you have tried to withhold information from the insurance company. Im about to run out of battery on my phone, so ive written this quickly, I hope it makes sense!

dancing how did your conversation with the tenant go last night?

10% a year?!!

Christ on a bike

I tried to contact the tenant but couldn't get hold of her, I left a voicemail asking her to call me back asap but she hasn't yet.

Yesterday thw manager of the EA called me, he was quite rude and insinuated that I was lying about everything and trying to scam them.
As far as he is aware I have a contract with them to let and manage the property, they have complete control over the property and complete authority to sign and do anything without needing my permission or agreement, he claims he has seen the contract himself and actually said "if you are trying to pull a fast one to get out of paying us our fees you've got another thing coming" he said my only role in the letting of the property is to accept the payments they send me and to pay them their fees, I am not to have any other involvement with the property or the tenant or I will be in breach of the contract!
He also said their contracts are water tight and there is no way I can get out of it.

I immediately called the solicitor and he is going to get right on it and has already asked them for a copy of this 'water tight contract'.

I'm absolutely fuming now and definitely want the house back, there's no way I'm letting them have anything else to do with it now.

This agent sounds like a nightmare. Incompetent but arrogant and aggressive....what a hideous combination.

Hope your solicitor rips through their "watertight" contract and you have a strong case for damages/compensation. I would be fuming too.

. I need to know what happens here. Poor you OP. I hope your lawyer can get things sorted.

Wow your estate agents are utter cock wombles. So sorry to hear this OP.

That agent is of course lying as you know. Please tell me this lot are not arla members?

Jesus, your agent is on crack! Seriously he's under the illusion that you have absolutely no involvement other than accepting the rent payment they send you? So as far as he's concerned if they want to they could sublet out bedrooms paint the house polka dot pink and turn the garden into a car park and you'd have no right to be informed or consulted or have any right of refusal? Total insane. You need to get out of this agreement asap, they are not acting in your interests at all

I've checked the arla website and they are not members, but there are five estate agents in the town where I live and only one of them is registered with them (and they all seem perfectly good) so I wouldn't have thought of that of as a massively negative thing when looking for one initially.

That's exactly what they seem to think BadWeek, he was so incredibly patronising, telling me that you either want to be a landlord and manage the property yourself or you want to be a property owner and hire a EA to manage the property and be the landlord, you don't get to hire a EA and micromanage the property, that's not how it works.

The solicitor seems pretty good though (he was a recommendation from a friend) so hopefully he can sort it all out without too much hassle and stress.

Arla are just a trade association and pretty toothless, but it would give a complaint route.

I have an agent (the branch are great , the headquarters idiots but it is about the best there is) and I still manage and check everything . because as the landlord the buck stops with me. Any agent that objects to you checking wants sacking pronto. Especially given this massive foul up.

Do you think he's being so aggressive because he knows he's on dodgy ground and is hoping to intimidate you? I wouldn't speak to him about it from now on, just say your solicitor is dealing with it, and they should communicate with him/her.

I have just read this thread like this 😮 The agent is so taking the piss by putting a new arrangement in place for YOUR PROPERTY without your consent!

I hope your solicitor can sort things out soon 🌺

What's the latest OP

The agent is unreal. What a dick head getting all aggressive with you and just lying!

Please can we have an update.

Completely invested here too!

I'm sorry to not update.

I don't really have anything to update with.

My solicitor has contacted them but not had a reply yet, I haven't heard from the tenant and the EA are just going around in circles repeating the same thing like a broken record.

My solicitor wrote to them on Monday (letter delivered on Monday) he has basically given them 7 days to produce proof that I agreed to this tenancy or to explain what the hell is going on.