I have posted previously on here for help with my LL from hell, and have had some excellent and much appreciated advice. However, as is with the case when delaing with such LLs, I would again appreciate some guidance. I have an AST for 6 months (ends 19 Sep) for which I pay £525.00 pcm direct to my LL. I used to pay this via a LA, but in March the LA ceased trading and my LL insisted on me signing a new TA, even though the previous TA was on a rolling contract. I was told to sign the new one, or she would serve a section 21. Since signing, this woman has been obstinate, bullying, unreasonable and intimidating (to be fair; always in writing, never in person). She has attempted to make claim for previous rent payments she says were never made to her from me, and has been very vindictive in her chasing of this money. She has attempted all number of ways to intimidate me into making payments I do not have to make by threats of legal action, threats of a claim for misrepresentation, continual references to 'criminal matters' and lying in regards to the Liquidators of the LA, whom she has offered many lies to be about so called meetings and demands from me from the liquidators. The woman is a nightmare. I dread the sound of droppage from the postbox after 12pm, as I know it will be her with one of her new harrassment letters. Whilst I have many issues with this LL, I would specifically like advice on interest charges and late fees. I have done some hunting, but there is quite a lot of conflicting advice around. In March 2011, I noticed an error on my Tax Credit award notice, which had my partners earnings at 3 times the actual amount he had earned. Despite phoning them immediately, my WTC payments stopped in April. They promised they would have the issues sorted by 20 June, but I am now being told there is a backlog and they still have not processed my backpayment due from them. When these WTC stopped, my household fell into financial hardship. Our budgets were already tight, and so I was struggling without the extra WTC payments. I am still in the same financial position. I explained all of the above to my LL, before the first late rental payment, and informed her of exact dates when payments would be made. Where I offered her such dates, I have always paid the amount promised on these dates. I initially told her 'I am hopeful that all arrears will be cleared by (but hopefully before) 20 June 2011, as this is the date that HMRC Tax Credits has given as the latest the claim should be rectified.' I have since updated her regularly on the Tax Credit situation, informing her of what has been said over the telephone, as well as letting her know when I will call Tax Credits again to offer her another update. As well as this, I have been making payments wherever possible in order that I do not fall two months into arrears and risk a PO being granted (I have a 2yr old boy, and no money to move at present). The TA states that 'any late payments will be subject to a fixed penalty of £35.00 payable immediately'. This is stated on a seperate sheet from the tenancy agreement, which lists a number of other T&Cs not included in the main agreement/small print. The small print has the usual 'to pay the LL reasonable costs as reasonably incurred.....etc'. There is also a clause in the contract to pay 'an interest charge of 4% above the BOE base rate from time to time prevailing on any rent or other money lawfully due from the T under this TA which remains unpaid for more than 14 days, interest to be charged daily from the date the payment fell due until payment'. Being the kind hearted soul that she is, when I fell 14 days late with my May rent, she activated this clause. There was a total outstanding of £265.00; to the date the rent was paid (33 days) she has added £431.46 in interest charges, a total charge of 164% of the original arrears. Whilst I have managed through begging, stealing and borrowing to clear May's rent, I am now in arrears on June's full rent of £525.00 (it was due 21 June). In a statement sent yesterday she has added interest of £496.12 on these arrears, which will continue to accrue until the arrears are paid. That's a charge of 94% of the original arrears to date, and this will only get higher. At 4.5% per day, I am accruing interest of £23.63 per day. Whilst I understand that a 4% above BOE base rate interest charge is fair, surely this is annually and not daily?! I have no hope of ever clearing this debt at this rate. She has also stipulated ion her last letter that any payments made by me will be credited to the arrears and interest in date order, meaning that even if I make a payment of the full £525.00 now (which I have no way of doing), this would actually be used to clear the £430.00+ interest charge from May, and not clear any rent. Surely this is unfair, as I will be forced to go into arrears every month as monies will be used to pay the interest and not the rental payments. Any help or guidance you can offer would be much appreciated; I am very stressed with having to deal with a restricted income at the moment through no fault of my own, and this is making a bad situation unbearable. I would also pint out that I am an advocate for paying rent; it is my first priority and it would never be my wish not to pay. The only reason I am falling late is because I do not have the money to pay. As soon as Tax Credits get their behinds into gear and make the backpayment, the arrears and late penalty fees will be paid. Many thanks in advance!

Hi, Not 100% sure of my rights/obligations here, so any help would be greatly appreciated! The LA which my LL used to manage the property on an AST which had fallen into periodic tenancy vanished without trace at the end of February. At the start of March, I recieved a telephone call from the LL informing me that no further payments were to be made to the LA, and that she had not received the rent payment for February. The LL confirmed that she had spoken to the LA before they 'vanished' and that they infoermed her they had recieved the rent, and would pay into heer account. According to the LL this did not happen and she was unable to contact them again. The LL insisted upon a new AST being signed - I did not see the purpose of this, and was loath to do so as my LL has a r3eputation for being 'difficult', but LL stated she would serve notice if I did not sign, and as I did not have a security deposit or moving costs for a new property, I felt I had no choice but to sign. As soon as the new AST was signed, my LL became the LL from hell. She began making demands for receipts for rental payments going back to December 2010, insisted upon late fee charges being paid for December, January and February payments (the rent since August 2009 has been paid either on time or up to 14 days late on occasion, without any notice of any issues regarding this), threatening court action for rent arrears if receipts were not produced etc. Whilst I understood her frustration with the LA, and would have been happy to work with her to get any paperwork that would help her in her claim against the LA, I was shocked and immediately defensive to this seemingly unfair and overly aggressive stance. In subsequent correspondence, the LL has stated that the LA are in administration and made continuous reference to this matter also being a 'criminal matter'. Upon searching rigorously, I managed to locate the majority of my receipts bar one for the amount of £160.00 (I have a dreadful feeling it was located in one of my books which I have since sold in a car boot sale...). LL has stated that according to the Official Receivers there is no record of £160.00 being paid, which I know to be untrue. Several letters later and she is now instructing me that if the £160.00 'arrears' and the 'outstanding late fees' are not paid within 7 days, she will make a claim at County Court. She has also issued a letter titled 'notice of legal proceedings' in which she states that her solicitor is 'looking into a claim for misrepresentation'. A couple of internet searching hours later, and I have my response to that particular letter. I asked the LL to provide details of the Official Receivers several times, as i suspected that the LA were not in adminstration, but had just vanished, and she was attempting to recover whatever losses she had by making demands for payments I could not provide receipts for. Luckily I found the majority, but this last £160.00 is proving difficult! She has made continuous references to the 'Official Receivers' and the contact she has had with them, but upon pushing her for the fourth time for the name of such, her response was as follows: 'In response to your queries regarding the Official Receivers for (LA) I have asked permission to pass their details onto you. As you are not a creditor they have specifically asked me not to do so at this time'. This actually made me laugh, as such information is a matter of public record, and this proved to me that she has not in fact had any contact with a receiver of any kind. I have paid for reports on companies house today, and they confirm that the LA is in liquidation, not administration. The reports were also only filed on 14.04.11, with the 'wind down' meeting having taken place on 31.03.11. As such, the claims my LL has made about speaking to Official Receivers before the company was even in liquidation are clearly lies. I obviously also now have the liquidators details What I would like help with is where I stand on the matter of the missing receipt for £160.00? Does my LL have the right to so aggressively chase for this, even though I have already paid it? Also, does she have the right to begin back-dating late fees when there was no issue raised in the past regarding late payments? Any help is greatly appreciated, I have had to become a rental expert in the last few months, what with the numerous claims about legal and criminal proceedings, as well as several repair issues (a leaking roof is 'non-urgent' according to the LL and the black mould spreading under my bedroom windows, up the wall, and around the back of the wardrobe is 'not harmful and should be cleaned off the wall with a mild detergent'; this advice comes without any testing of the mould, and without her even seeing it!). I have managed to find my own answers on most of the curveballs my LL has thrown at me, but I'm a little stuck on this one! Many thanks in anticipation

Thanks very much for your replies, much appreciated. The LA is Rochdale Estates on 4 Union Street in Rochdale. Any 'ferreting' would be greatly appreciated! This is the LL's only other property aside from her family home, and the first time she has let property. She does act as though she is the only person to have ever let a property out, and at times her attitude had caused major friction with myself, and with the LA, as she cannot understand that the property is her house, but is no longer her home. There is no GSC to speak of, just a Home Care Agreement with British Gas, who service the boiler/central heating anually. They have provided paperwork that boiler/CH is in working order and fit for purpose, but this is not a GSC, however I cannot get the LL to understand this. There are several other LL appliances including cooker, standard gas fire, and open chimney log burning fireplace. The T ended in Sept last year, and had reverted to SP AST. I did explain that no new AST was needed, but LL was adamant that a new one be signed or she would serve notice. This was apparently 'on advice from her solicitor', a statement which seems to follow on from every point she raises in her correspondence. It's the aggressiveness of her manner since the LA have vanished that I find problematic; she's always been quite unreasonable (she went ballistic because we'd painted over a wall which was covered in black/brown damp stains in the same colour it was before for example), but this is a new level of aggressiveness, which makes me feel very uneasy, and makes me question whether she is attempting to scare me with constant talks of solictitors, police involvement, and threatening eviction, despite the fact I have always been a good tenant. I feel like she is railroading me somehow, maybe in order to cover up some loophole or something similar. I am not into loopholes, I like to play above board and pay my bills, but her hostile manner has really angered me, especially when her problems are not my fault!! I've managed to dig out all receipts and/or Bacs payment except for one in the amount of £160.00 (my partner paid this and he is useless with bits of paper - it'll be around somewhere, I'll just have to excavate!), if I cannot locate this will this mean I have to pay the £160.00 again? Many, many thanks once again

I have some issues with my LL, and have spent many an hour hammering the internet for information – I require additional clarification on what I’ve found out so far, any advice would be much appreciated! I have been a tenant with the same LA for over 2 years and lived in two properties through them. I moved into my current rented property in September 2009, when my LL purchased the property I was renting at the time, and I agreed to rent her property through the same LA. In January this year, the LA asked that all payments should be made to them in cash as they were ‘having problems changing banks’. Whilst this seemed a little strange, I had no issue or cause for concern as I had an excellent relationship with the LA, they had gone above and beyond their legal duties as LA, and I was very happy with the admirable way they looked after the tenants as well as the landlords. I made payments in cash, and received receipts for the same. At the start of March, I received a phone call from my LL stating that I should not make any further payments to the LA, and that she would provide bank details for me to pay rent directly to her. She informed me that she had not received payment from the LA for February’s rent, and that she could not get in contact with anyone from the LA (office closed, no-one answering phone etc). She did confirm that at the end of Feb she spoke to a lady at the LA over the phone; it was someone she had not spoken to previously, and the lady stated that she was ‘a family friend helping out’. The LL told me that the lady confirmed that Feb rental had been paid, and that payment would be made to my LL asap. According to the LL, no payment was made. My LL shortly afterwards posted the new tenancy agreement (AST for 6 months), and after adding some additional terms and conditions, I signed the AST. I would have preferred to move out of the property (I have met the LL and she can be very difficult, especially when you are voicing her errors or issues!) but as I did not have a security deposit (the LA had used the deposit as a rent payment on the previous property when my partner had to have emergency heart surgery and our funds hit the floor), and did not have the money to move, I didn’t see I had much choice. In the same correspondence, the LL also made additional claim that the LA had gone into liquidation, however, despite requesting the information three times in writing, she has yet to provide details of the Receivers, which makes me suspect that the LA has simply vanished and is not actually in receivership. Under the new AST, the rent for March fell due on 21.03.11, however, following issues with my tax credit payment I was only able to pay £150.00 (the rent is £525.00 per cal month). I informed the LL of my circumstances in writing and confirmed that a) if the tax credit issue was resolved quickly, the rent would be paid as soon as I received the shortfall payment or b) if the issue was not resolved quickly enough, I would pay £50.00 on 25.03.11, with the full outstanding balance to be cleared on 01.04.11. My LL has now stated in writing that unless payment is made in full by 25.03.11 for Feb rental (under the previous AST and already paid to the LA), and Mar (under the new AST), she will go to CC for a possession order. I have looked up the terms and understand that she is not in a legal position to seek such an order as there is less than two months rent arrears and the offer/reasons for late payment I have made for the arrears is reasonable, and also that she has not supplied any Notice of Intention. She also claims that she has filed a complaint with the police in regard to the LA, as it is a criminal matter, and that she requires receipts for payments made to LA dating back to Dec 2010, despite confirming in writing that she has received the rental payments for Dec and Jan (albeit late). Sorry to go on, but I wanted to provide a full background, and would appreciate greatly any advice offered on the following points of concern: As far as I can tell, the non-payment of rent by the LA is a civil matter, not a criminal matter as it involves the breaking of a contract by the LA, and as such the LL would have to sue the LA. Is this correct? Is there a difference to LL/tenant obligations if the LA has just vanished rather than gone in administration? Can my LL demand receipts for a 3 month period even when she has confirmed payment received for 2 of them? And what happens if I cannot find all receipts? (I am currently missing one receipt for a payment of £160.00). Am I legally obliged to provide any receipts at all? I am a good tenant, and always make my rent the first bill I pay; I am in no way trying to get out of paying anything. I understand my LL concerns about the loss of her money, but I do object to being treated like I have done wrong and being threatened with eviction when she has no right to do. I am also having a nightmare with trying to get her to understand that whilst the boiler is indeed covered by a Home Care agreement as has a safety certificate, the other gas appliances do not have the same, and her Home Care agreement does not cover these. This is the mentality I am dealing with, so I need to be 100% certain of my legal obligation so that I can be sure where I stand, and not be harassed or bullied which is what I feel she is trying to do (repeated mention of it being a ‘police matter’, demands for rent confirmed as already paid, threats to evict etc). I feel she is trying to railroad me, and, with her coming to inspect the property on Saturday (I can’t wait ), I want to be able to firmly stand my ground should she make any demands that she is not legally entitled to do so. Thanks so much in advance for your help!!