On Thursday I caught part of Barrister Peter Marcus’s Easy Law Training workshop on landlord’s repairing obligations.
Attendees included some Landlord Law regulars I have come to know and other landlords and letting agents wanting to increase their knowledge of landlord-tenant law as a sound basis for running their businesses.
Amidst the flurry of websites encouraging people to become landlords, talking of the financial benefits of yields and loan to value ratios little is made of the legal aspects of what happens when things go Pete Tong (“Wrong”………giving away my 1990s clubbing roots)
Tessa and I come from different sides of the track. Her clients are decent landlords wanting to educate themselves and do things right, whereas I come from years of dealing with scumbags and criminals who are landlords by default, simply because where there is property there is money.
So I always find it heartening to meet Tessa’s clients, it restores my faith in human nature.
A problem is told
My reverie was shattered however upon leaving the workshop and spending half an hour on the phone to a mate in council housing advice, whilst standing outside Gloucester Rd Tube station.
She has a unique problem from the bottom-feeder end of the spectrum that as well as being interesting from a legal perspective, also provides a perfect illustration of the kinds of problems that can beset a decent landlord, swimming in a tank full of sharks.
Treat this as a housing law essay question and see what you make of it. Its real life and its ongoing as we speak.
The situation
Landlord Mr A owns two flats side by side. Both are rather run down and not fit to be let, So he has pulled them from the market for the past few months whilst he builds reserves of cash to do them up.
His normal ‘letting Agent B ltd’ also have the properties on hold, until such time as they are fully functional.
Somehow, in the mix there ‘Persons unknown’ who we shall call ‘Agent C’ have procured a set of keys and advertised both properties for let on a well-known property portal. Modesty and a fear of a libel suit precludes me from mentioning their names but suffice to say they are massive in both the property lettings market and a complete lack of willingness to tackle people abusing their services.
Flat 1
Flat 1 is let to a family.
The council have intervened and pronounced the property a death trap and have placed the family in temporary accommodation, pending re-housing. No fault on Landlord A , or letting agent B as they didn’t rent it out anyway.
However, new occupants have moved in, without sight of a tenancy agreement.
Rubbish in the front garden and neighbour complaints about dubious comings and goings have alerted a different arm of the council to eradicate allegations of anti-social behaviour against occupiers whose security of tenure are as yet unknown.
Flat 2
Flat 2 next door suffers from the same uninhabitable conditions as flat 1. None of which is the fault of landlord Mr A or letting agent B because they are not letting them out.
The council haven’t closed the property down because they are mindful that unlike the occupants of flat 1, the residents are all single, therefore not eligible for homelessness assistance and they don’t want to throw people on the street.
Trouble is, the residents of flat 2 claim to hold a tenancy agreement with a person that none of them know the name of, stating that he comes to the property once a month to collect rent which they pay in cash.
When asked to see the tenancy agreement they announced that the sole tenant who has a copy is visiting family in Romania and mysteriously has taken the contract with them……well you would wouldn’t you?
Upon being apprised of this situation by my friend my immediate response was to laugh like Brian Blessed and to utter two words….the second being ‘Off’.
But what is the legal situation here?
Are they licensees?, Are they tenants? If so what kind of tenants?
What legal questions should we ask to clarify what rights people have and what procedure the landlord needs to follow to regain control of his property?
Where did fake ‘Agent C’ get the keys in the first place? Does ‘Agent C’ have the legal power to grant a sub tenancy?
Are they squatters? In which case why don’t the police simply arrest under s144 of LASPO?
If poor ‘Landlord A’ goes to court for an Interim Possession Order, treating the occupiers as squatters what happens if they produce evidence that they have a tenancy agreement?
If residents of Flat 2 have a written agreement, who let people into flat 1 after the council re-housed them? And under what arrangement?
This is not an exhaustive list of legal questions but it is not an uncommonly complicated situation given how many bad guys there are out there, operating with no regard to the legal niceties.
This is the world of ‘Rent to rent’, a new phenomenon that is sweeping the nation unchecked.
We are talking Landlord Law here, not common sense. We don’t have the luxury of saying, as my wife Frazzy did, that they are “All lying little shits”. She may well be right but this doesn’t cut any mustard when dealing with the law.
So here is your challenge for the week.
………………discuss.
Tessa Shepperson says
December 1, 2015 at 8:46 AMAs against their ‘landlord’ ie the person who they dealt with, they have a binding agreement and valid tenancy.
However this is not binding against the real owner of the property and so far as he is concerned they are squatters.
He can therefore evict them using the ‘squatters procedure’ – I have a DIY kit for sale here http://evictingsquatters.co.uk/
Note that this would not be the case if the fake landlord was the legal tenant of the property (as is the case is most rent to rent situations).
ZTA says
December 1, 2015 at 5:21 PMIf because they have an agreement with someone who is not even the landlord they are therefore not squatters – then every squatter will make some written agreement and stick any name under landlord..
Although police will surely be reluctant to get involved – although they should prob also treat this case as normal squatters – the court will surely consider such ‘tenants’ as normal squatters??
Then again… Who knows!!
Ben Reeve Lewis says
December 1, 2015 at 6:27 PMYes but too many presumptions.
How did C get the keys?
Are they working for B?
does B know?
Is B ripping off C?
Is A involved and merely lying?
if C was a tenant taking advantage of Rent to rent? and would then be ‘Unauthorised occupants’ rather than squatters?
I know county court judges who would demand all i’s be dotted and T’s be crossed before they would even consider.
County court bailiffs have told me that when arriving to evict on a mortgage case, if there are people claiming to be tenants of the mortgagor they just walk and wait for further instructions.
When S144 of LASPO was introduced a Met police statement said that there wasnt a danger of police erroneously arresting a squatter who wasnt actually a squatter because they had received extensive training on the difference.
But around the same time I trained 20 police inspectors at the Met training suite in Victoria and mentioned this. The response was mystified laughter, one saying “Well we had an email”.
I have been on raids with police against squatters. They dont arrest and simply disperse them, only to find they have a plan B and another property already lined up.
Councils ave the responsibility of policing the PRS but as with normal police you have to prove that A is A and not B or that A isnt acting independently of B or on their instructions.
Jamie says
December 3, 2015 at 5:43 PMIt all rather depends on what perspective you are taking (either the landlord’s or the local authority’s)
and what your aims are.
Assuming landlord A’s perspective and he wants possession, then it all hinges on what authority Agent C had to let the flats and if they were lawfully entitled to do so.
If the tenants have a rent-to-rent sub-tenancy (and can prove it) they have a lawful tenancy and the original tenant would be their landlord, otherwise they are trespassers.
If they are trespassers the police should deal with it but failing that, landlord A would have to apply for an Interim Possession Order.
If they have a lawful sub-tenancy then it remains valid until their landlord’s tenancy ends with the head Landlord A. So, Landlord A would have to end the tenancy with the original tenant (probably through the courts for breaching terms on sub-letting), and only then will the rent to rent sub-tenancy come to an end. At this point the occupiers become trespassers and can be dealt with as above.
As to Agent C, much depends on what was said about letting the flats and what is in the agency agreement (if one exists). E.g. did Agent B have permission to sub-contract? Assuming agent c did not have proper authority to let the flat, Landlord A can hold them liable for costs of the evictions.
If Agent B used 3rd party C to let the flat did they have authority to sub-contract? Did the landlord tell them not to let the flat? If A can prove that B let the flat without proper authority he can claim damages for the costs.
Ben Reeve Lewis says
December 3, 2015 at 8:24 PMExactly Jamie….too many unanswered questions for a TRO to properly advise or to advance legal action.
Who are these various people? How did they come by their accommodation?
There could be a range of different answers depending on the back-story of each occupant.
Negotiating your way through rogue landlord land isnt like sticking a parking ticket on a car.
Tenant A may have different rights to tenant B
Jamie says
December 4, 2015 at 11:30 AMGood luck sorting that lot out!
Rent Rebel says
December 4, 2015 at 12:03 PMIsn’t it interesting to see what a traded commodity the door keys quickly become. I am once again reminded why I always change the locks; ever moreso where letting agents are concerned.
Andrew Dodman says
December 23, 2015 at 8:45 PMThese problems would go away if society and the legal structure reverted to the basics. This would benefit decent tenants and landlords alike. It means reasserting the right of the legal owner of a property (with reasonable safeguards) to kick out people living there and to use their own property as they wish.
The effect of the current regime on all parties is the same as would be the effect on the shopping environment if rules were relaxed to allow limited shoplifting, theft, and to prevent shops from dealing with such problems. There would be no shops and all decent people would suffer.
There would also be no more ludicrous arguments.