Thank you for all your replies. There are certainly some contradictory views there. Things have been complicated by the lodger's father dying on Sunday. My friend has gone to pieces as she feels the lodger will use this as an excuse to emotionally blackmail her into allowing him to stay. My personal feeling is that, out of compassion, she should wait till a week or two after the funeral till she broaches the subject again. Now his father isn't there to object, he can move to his father's house till it's sold. Incidentally, the abuse has all been emotional, not physical, so I don't think the police will be interested.

1. He moved in 15 years ago, so I guess around 2004. She'd already owned and lived in the house a number of years. 2. No tenancy agreement at any time 3. Their relationship ended in April 2018, so she moved to the spare room and he stayed in the main bedroom. Does that mean that he became a lodger at that point? He had no contract and has paid no rent. He started contributing £100 per month towards bills 6 months ago. I don't know it's significant , but he bought his own bed and some other bits of furniture. He has a koi tank and guinea pigs in hutches in the garden and several fish tanks in the house.

Thank you for your replies. Having read through the links and references it would see that, as an excluded lodger with no rental agreement in place, the amount of notice required depends on whether the lodger pays rent weekly or monthly. In this instance, the lodger doesn't pay rent at all, so I will take the weekly period of 28 days notice. Although the individual has been living in the house for a number of years, it was as the partner of the home owner. He has never paid rent. From 2010 till January 2018 he didn't make any financial contribution at all towards bills. Then, in January 2018, he stopped contributing towards food also My friend didn't want him to stay after they split up last April. He's there because he is controlling and manipulative. My friend is battling with depression and has turned to the bottle to try to cope with his behaviour and to help her to deal with getting him out of her house. Under these circumstances, would he still be able to claim he's a tenant?

Yes, she owns the house outright - she is mortgage-free

A friend of mine needs her lodger to move out of her home, which she owns, and I’m hoping someone can tell me if the lodger has any rights. The lodger moved in with my friend, 15 years ago when they were dating. For the first 7 years he paid her £200 towards food and bills, but he didn’t pay anything once he stopped working in summer 2010. The relationship ended last April, at which point he kicked my friend out of the main bedroom with the en-suite and into the spare room. He has continued to live there rent free and without a contract ever since. Six months ago, my friend insisted he gives her £100 per month to cover utility bills and the extra council tax she’s paying because she isn’t the sole occupant. Again, there is no formal contract for this. In November my friend gave the logger 6 months’ notice to leave. She said he had to be out with all his belongings, which have taken over her home, by the end of May. He has a father with space in his home, but he says he doesn’t want to go there. Because he has health issues, he says he wants to wait for the council to find him somewhere to live. The lodger treats my friend appallingly. He is manipulative, abusive and controlling and it is making her ill. She has now decided she needs him to leave asap for the sake of her mental health, preferably by 6th April. Is there any reason she can’t legally do this?

Does it make a difference that the landlord sometimes lets out his room and goes to live elsewhere? When my daughter first moved in, he rented his room out for 3 weeks, but he stayed in his other property for a couple of months.

My daughter has phoned the council and they have confirmed the landlord does not need to be licenced.

According to the council website.. 'A HMO licence is needed if a property: has three storeys or more (including cellars, attics, basements, mezzanine floors and loft conversions) and is occupied by five or more people from two or more households and has tenants who share some amenities like kitchen, bathroom or laundry in some cases a maisonette in a house or above commercial premises may need a licence if similarly occupied.' There were 5 tenants sharing facilities, but only 2 stories.

My daughter called the council and was told the landlord didn't have to be registered as the house is less than 3 stories.

There are 4 bedrooms in the house. The landlord rents out 3 and sleeps in the fourth. However, he sometimes rents out the fourth and goes to stay in his other property for the duration.

The landlord is the owner of the property. There was a lock on the door, but my daughter and bf didn't use it. There is no back story. They always got on very well, which is why my daughter is so shocked at his behaviour. Landlord knew my daughter and bf would be leaving soon. Perhaps he just wanted an excuse not to give the deposit back. But that doesn't help my daughter, who needs the deposit back.

My daughter and her boyfriend had been renting a room from a live-in landlord (not sub-letting) for 9 months when he evicted them without notice. He had entered their room without prior arrangement while they were on holiday and found some cigarette burns on the outside window ledge. (He had given the boyfriend permission to smoke out of the window when they moved in). He sent an email advising that they had to move out the day they returned. My daughter and boyfriend had always paid their rent on time, monthly in advance, but had recently changed to weekly payments, by arrangement, as they knew they would have to move out soon - my daughter had secured a job 200 miles away and her boyfriend was waiting for a transfer at work. My daughter thought she would be able to reason with the landlord as they had always had a good relationship, but this wasn't to be the case and he was extremely abusive. He wouldn't let them clean the room and has told them he will deduct the cost of cleaning from their deposit, which seems unreasonable to me since they were prepared to do it. It might be worth pointing out at this stage that the room and furniture were very tatty from the time they moved in the landlord never upgraded the 4ft bed to a 4ft6 one as he promised before they moved in. My daughter has drafted an email to the landlord, which I have copied below. Would anyone be able to give her some feedback on the letter? There are a couple of figures and dates left blank as my daughter needs to look at her bank records for the details. Also, I think she is mistaken about being 'occupiers with basic protection', as the landlord lived in the house and shared common areas. The email is rather long, but it gives lots of information. I'll be really grateful to anyone who takes the time to read it.... I am emailing regarding the return of our deposit which amounts to £500. You evicted [boyfriend] and me from your property on Saturday 13th June 2015 (despite the rent paid to you by us for the 1st 2 weeks of June not running out until Sunday 14th). This was following you entering our bedroom without any prior notice given or permission gained on the 13th June whilst we were away on holiday. Despite this not being an unlawful act, it was a complete invasion of privacy. By law, you were required to give us a minimum of 4 weeks’ notice to move out as we were classed as ‘occupiers with basic protection’ with no fixed term contract. However, you evicted us with immediate effect. The tone of your original email was unpleasant and completely uncalled for. In this email you attached photos of ‘damage’ done to the outside windowsill by cigarette ash (see attached photo ‘1’). Upon on inspection and after a few minutes scrubbing the ‘damage’ was greatly reduced (see attached photo ‘2’) and we believe that had you allowed us to clean properly that there would have been no real damage, simply dirt. The way you spoke to me while I was cleaning the room was absolutely disgusting. You mentioned that you were shocked at not receiving an apology from me, and you accused me of having a terrible attitude, which I fear you may have misinterpreted from my ability to stay calm and neutral under attempts of intimidation. Let me tell you this; I will always apologise to someone when I have wronged them, however when you come to me, all guns blazing, shouting in my face and cutting me off when I try to explain that the damage is in fact just dirt then you lose all respect from me. I had expected us to have a mature (if slightly unpleasant/ awkward) discussion about the ‘damage’ and how we would resolve the situation. Instead I was met with aggression and rudeness and for that reason I certainly did not apologise to you. You advised that you would be sending us a quote for the cost of the repair to the damage. Almost a month has passed and we have had no such correspondence from you. Over the months that we lived in your property you had an extra £50 from us towards bills that we did not owe to you. On the 23rd September 2014 (the day before I moved in to the property) I transferred £… to cover rent for the last week of the month and bills (1/4 of the monthly amount of £475) On the 1st October 2014 I transferred the full monthly amount of £475 to you. However, [boyfriend] was not in [town] from\ the 6th October- 18th October 2014 as he was in [hometown]working his notice, and therefore the money you received for his share of the bills between these dates (amounting to £25) was in fact money that we didn’t owe. On the ….June 2015 I transferred to you £237.50 to cover the first 2 weeks of the month (up to AND INCLUDING Sunday 14th). When I asked you why you went into our room, one of the reasons you gave was that we hadn’t paid to live there anymore, which, as you can see is completely untrue. We returned from our holiday on the Monday (15th June), and had you not evicted us 2 days earlier you would have received another week’s rent on this date, in keeping with an agreement you made with [boyfriend] that we could pay you week by week whilst we were looking to move to [new town]. The money paid to you at the beginning of June included money for bills for the whole 2 week period. However, [boyfriend]and I returned to [hometown]l after he finished work on Sunday 7th June in preparation for our festival on the 10th June. Therefore, between the 7th June- 14th June 2015 you received a total of £25 towards bills for the two of us for a week when we were not at the property. Altogether then, you have had an extra £50 from us. Another relevant fact is that for over 3 months (a third of our time at the property) there was no working oven. This is unacceptable, and when I asked you when this would be fixed you simply told me that it would need completely replacing. When you were shouting at [boyfriend] and me to ‘get out’ of your house, I said to you that we would not be paying towards any costs of cleaning, as we were in the process of doing it ourselves and you did not allow us to finish. With regards to the windowsill, as explained above this would also have been clean had you allowed us to finish the job. However as a gesture of good will and with a desire to have this dealt with quickly, we are prepared to let you keep the extra £50 you had from us, and just return out £500 deposit in full. I believe that this is extremely generous of us, especially when taking into account that [boyfriend] was unable to work his notice in [town] (he had to buy an extra train ticket to go down and work 1 days’ notice as he was only able to find space in a hostel for 1 night, meaning that he ended up paying a total of £90 to earn £60) and therefore suffered loss of earnings for 2 weeks, amounting to £428.80 based on his wage of £6.70/hour and MINIMUM contracted hours of 32/week.

We checked Travelpack's terms and conditions and they reserved the right to increase their prices up to 72 hours before departure. We checked with Consumer Direct and were advised that this was legal and, although we could fight it, it was unlikely we'd win. We decided the safest course of action would be to cancel the booking and buy the tickets elsewhere. It has taken 3 weeks, but the money has now been credited to my husband's credit card.

Thanks leblueboy. The manager was supposed to call us today, but didn't. We still haven't received the e-tickets, so we'll need to call them. My husband paid on his M&S card and they've told him their legal dept should be able to help him if he doesn't get anywhere.

That's what we were thinking. We're not sure, though, whether it makes a difference that he bought the tickets through an agent rather than direct with the airline.