Landlord broke agreement before we moved in!

[Geordie08]

we signed a contract with our new landlord to move into her flat on the 24th July as she was buying a new flat somehwere else.

She took £1600 deposit from us to "hold" the property until July and now she has changed her mind she would like to cancel the agreement and stay in her place!

She wasnts to rent out the new place that she has bought instead as "its the size of a shoebox" (!!)

She emailed me to tell me in a manner that was like she was doing me a favour by returning our desposit of £1600.

What can we do? Im furious? WE now have to find a flat in very short time

Thanks,
M

[MrShed]

I assume she has in fact(or will be) returning the deposit?

[Geordie08]

Well she says she will return it to us tonight, if we had broken the contract she would have kept the deposit. Now that she has broken the contract, what can we do?

We dont have £1600 of her money to keep.....

CAn we do anything to either enforce her to uphold the contract she signed, or claim compensation from her?

Thanks,
M

[raydetinu]

She has broken a signed contract and therefore entitled to compensation, but this will be based on your time and out of pocket expenses in finding new accommodation. you will need to keep records nad keep expenses reasonable, but you have a claim.
Now you can get her to accept this course of action and submit costs when you know what they are or propose a lump sum now in settlement of any future claim.
if she refuses then you will have to take her to court i'm afraid, but you should win something.

[Geordie08]

We were thinking of making her an offer of he paying us back our initial deposit (£1600) + her paying us £1600 as this is the amount she would have kept back had we broken the agreement.

Does that sound like a reasonable offer?

That would be £800 each which is about the amount we are going to loose as we were looking to move into a property that will start 2x weeks before our current contract ends... hence we will have to "double pay" rent for 2x properties for 2x weeks.

She could argue that we could find another place that starts on teh right date, in London, currently with the rental market as it is.... this is not all that easy!

Also, we gave our landlord notice based on the date she said we could move in to her property on..... prior to this, we had a very flexible date and we could have moved out earlier / later. I have emails from my current landlord to this effect...

Does my offer of £1600 sound fair?

Regards
M

[MrShed]

You are entitled to your actual financial loss. Therefore, whatever the EXTRA costs of this are you are entitled to.

[Geordie08]

But I dont think that the actual costs are quantifiable....

[MrShed]

Well they have to be, or the landlord is not liable for them.

[Geordie08]

ok, so can I charge her my hourly wage for looking around new places?

Can I charge her the costs of us having to pay double rent, or paying for storage + hotel bills if there is a gap until our new tenancy starts?

This is a huge grey area for tenants. If we had broke, we would have lost £1600, and yet she loses potentially nothing.....

I guess we should have asked for something in the contract for incase she pulled out....

It seems such a strange situation to be in.

Thanks anyway,
M

[MrShed]

You wouldnt have lost £1600 - you would be entitled to the amount back that she hadnt actually lost.

Yes you can quantify all of the above, other than the hourly wage IMO.

[Geordie08]

The plot further thickens:

The LL returned our deposit. Sent an email saying she was staying in the apt and that we could not move in on the 24th Jul.

We then took the refunded deposit and placed it on another flat and signed a new tenancy agreement with a new Agency. The day we did this the LL sent an email via a lawyer saying that the LL intended to now honour the agreement...... HELP!

She returned the deposit so we found a new place and put the deposit down on this place.....(!!)

The LL cannot surely terminate an agreement, return the deposit (which enforces the message that the agreement has been terminated) and then change their mind can they?

I fully intend on taking this lady to court for the incurred expenses that finding a new place has cost....

Can anyone advise?
Thanks,
M

[raydetinu]

Yep quite right original agreement IMHO is now null and void. no point in even discussing it with them. Just keep on with claim for out of pocket costs.

[Geordie08]

Excellent.... How do I go about doing that?

Do I need to fill in a form and send it to her lawyer?

I assume I'll have to pay court fees..... will these be refundable when we win?

Thanks for quick reply, her lawyer is refusing to answer our emails, we asked them to revert by Clsoe of business, they replied saying that thy would respond shortly, but would ignore our deadline.... I thought that was particularly professional.

I just want to take this throught the courts ASAP now as these lawyers are just stalling.

Can you pelase advise the best course of action?

Thanks again

[raydetinu]

Yes just list your costs with as much back up as possible, reciepts, time line etc. and give them 14 days to repond. after that if not satisfied with response send a LBA, letter before action, and again give them 14 days, then start claim procedure in SCC.

[Geordie08]

Small claims court and Letter befoer action.... do you have any pro-formas?

We just an email from the lawyers saying they will now counter claim for loss of rent as we are now not honouring the agreement.... stating that we did not "accept" her breach of contract and did not advise her that we would be looking for another property. She told us we could not move in and she gave us our deposit back!! What else could we do except look for somewhere to live?!?!

Can I PM someone this as I dont want to post on the forum as we are defo going to court with this.

I'd be grateful for any help.

regards
Mandy

[MrShed]

Her lawyers are taking out there collective rear ends. As is she. Agreement is entirely null and void. Just make sure you keep a FULL record of all communication you have had, especially those where she has said you cannot move in.

As I am local, PLEASE let me know if this goes to court and when - I really want to go to see how hard the judge laughs!!

PM me if you want, but doesnt change the situation in my opinion, regardless of what they have stated. I will help you as much as I can with this, coz she really is taking the water.

[Geordie08]

Hi MrShed. Ypu should have the details now.

Many thanks again,

[Geordie08]

MrShed,

Did you get the chance to read through my email? If you think we still have a case, I will look into getting a lawyer etc, and writing letters etc.

Cant believe Im stressing about this on a Friday night!!

Thank you,
M