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.

Placemarking....sorry! Hope it all gets sorted for you OP.

Hope things work out. With regards to the EA insisting they should do everything - by contrast, my mother lives overseas and has had a property let and managed for several years. The range of things (repairs and such like) that she has had to sort out herself at a distance despite asking and paying for "full management" is incredible.

I'm overinvested in this.

www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?2591-Maximum-Length-of-an-AST-Agreement

Quote:

"These are the defining lengths of the term where matters can change:-

For a term of 3 years or under it does not have to be witnessed and can be drawn up by a landlord & tenant quite simply.
Over 3 years then it does have to be signed as a deed and witnessed.
If you want to grant a tenancy of more than 7 years then you should use a tenancy at common law as you could make a tenant responsible for all repairs if you wanted to! (quite common in commercial tenancies). You would need to ensure it does not come under the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954 or you could be stuck with the tenant.
For tenancies over 21 years then different rules apply.

The moral is therefore keep it short! "

No idea if this guy knows what he's talking about. I do think special has it 100% spot on - you should get a specialist lawyer involved in this.

I haev a friend whose husband is involved in residential real estate development. If you're interested in a rec, PM me.

all very odd. I'm no help at all just shamelessly placemarking

Good lord dancing what a nightmare.

Has your solicitor advised you if you can sue the EA for the legal fees and lose of rent you're going to incur? Presumably if the tenant is refusing to pay you and the EA is no longer your agent the rent won't make its way to you either? Have you contacted your insurance company to ask if they'll cover your legal fees?

Id consult with the solicitor and draft a letter direct to your tenant clearly stating the issue with the change of TA and advising her the contract with your EA has been dissolved so she has to deal directly with you. Send it recorded delivery with signature required. If you don't have proof in writing that she's been advised of this she can deny knowing she needed to pay rent to you, however if she stil refuses to pay you the rent owed then you have further cause for her removal from the property.

Christ on a bike! The tenant is being ridiculous refusing to acknowledge you as her LL! I am at the whole scenario!

I'm guessing the tenant is running a nursery from the house or some sort of workshop given the potential for damage the OP has managed. I think the agents' behaviour is scandalous and they should be sued. There's a guy (specialist solicitor) who features on the Nightmare Tenants tv programme who might be worth a shout about this.

Fuck me! This is insane!
I feel for you.

Sounds like you will have two legal processes. One for tenant one for EA. red tenant There are specialist legal companies who just do evictions. They may be worth a chat. You will need to do everything by the book so make sure your solicitor knows what exactly they are doing. We had to evict a tenant once. We didn't attend the court but the company we used told me loads of applications to evict get thrown out in court because of small technicalities.

And for the record, re the tenant I mentioned below the tenant we had to evict had forged his references. It was so obvious! Letter from bank had 5 spelling mistakes on it including the banks name (!) and had been faxed to the Estate Agent from a travel company. We tried to sue EA for our losses because they had been so crap and not properly referenced but it was going to cost more than any money we would get in. Now I insist I see every contract, every renewal, every reference. Sorry didn't mean to hi jack.....,just got annoyed all over again

This has been really shocking reading. so sorry you're having to deal with this.

Further to what special says have you checked the Land Registry to see what is in there?

Just read this and was wondering how it's all going? Gl to you, it's a bloody cheek

The tenancy is 119 months long, so if the rent is more than £1051/month, there may be stamp duty due as well as the entire rent exceeds £125,000. This is the tenants responsibility and they can be fined if it's not paid.

socks didn't know that tenements had to pay stamp duty on the total rent for their agreed tendency over a threshold!

Bloody hell,what a nightmare!

badweek yeah, it's not very common for this to happen with normal AST arrangements as the rent would have to be astronomical over the normal 1/2 year term. When you start talking about very high end London properties, it can become an issue.

Or with ridiculous long tenancies like this

I haven't heard of that stamp duty liability before, however if that is the case it could be a bargaining chip for the OP to use to get the tenant to go instead of insisting this long 'tenancy' agreed with the agent is valid.

OP - I think you need to name the agent when you have this sorted out!

Well I have another update.

The EA has said they will be happy to cut ties with me, but i will have to buy myself out of my contract with them, plus pay an administration fee, so I can get rid of them for the bargain price of £13,637.43

They also claim that regardless of if I cut ties with them the tenants TA will still be valid.

The tenant has already been sent a section 21 and given her 2 months notice to leave so we will see what happens with that.

I didn't check the land registry but couldn't find anything incriminating btw.

Do you mean you did check?

So they want you to pay what, their management fees for the duration of the 'tenancy' you didn't agree to and which they had no authority to set up?

But surely it's the EA who have breached the terms of the contract, why should you have to pay to get out of it??