CAB are worse than useless in these situations from my personal experience. Shelter would be the way to go.

Just to clarify, my thoughts. - A contract absolutely cannot override the statutory rights of the tenant. The tenant had absolute right to leave at the end of the fixed term with no rent due and no notice required. Steven - you have surprised me by thinking anything other - What does your tenancy state re: timescales for the deposit being returned following completion of the tenancy? You can sue for the deposit, plus interest, from this date. If you have suffered any ACTUAL FINANCIAL LOSS as a DIRECT result of the deposit not being returned by this date, you can sue for this too.

I cant add anything here, but subbing - a quite ludicrous situation, and want to keep an eye to see how it pans out (hopefully for the best). I would echo Sidewinder though in that this really does require some proper legal advice.

A couple of additional questions that may add some fuel to the fire as well. - Has your deposit been placed in a tenancy deposit scheme, and have you had formal notification of such? - How many people in total reside in the property, and how many floors does it have? I suspect the reason for you being picked as the people to leave by the way is that the landlord believes (partially wrongly) that you have little/no security of tenure as you are periodic as opposed to the new tenant who is (presumably) still within a fixed term AST.

As an afterthought - there is a potential option 3, in that he could issue a formal Section 8 notice based on the alleged anti social behaviour, which could instigate eviction proceedings earlier than two and a half months. But, I would be amazed if this landlord has even heard of a housing act from the sound of it, never mind a Section 8 notice. Even if he does, this will be easily contested at the court hearing.

Realistically, you may unfortunately (and unfairly, based upon what you have said) have to start looking elsewhere. But, you certainly have zero obligation to move in 2 weeks. To my mind, you have two approaches. 1) Approach your landlord again, and attempt to reason with him, stating that you are the injured party, you do not wish to leave, and ask him to please reconsider. This would seem to be an obvious approach to follow, as there is nothing to lose. 2) Should the above fail, rather than bring to his attention that it is an invalid notice (you have no obligation to do so), I would probably leave it until quite close to the deadline date, and then inform him that you are not intending to leave on that date (dont give him a specific reason, no need to). By all means, be apologetic (albeit you have no need to be), but simply state that as you have no ability to leave to go elsewhere, you cannot leave. If he pushes on a reason, then state that the local housing authority do not class as homeless if you voluntarily leave without a court order (this is true). Following these two options (you never know, option 1 may win out), then I can see one of two things happening. 1) He will attempt to remove you on that date. If he does, then contact your local housing officer (at the council) urgently. He will be committing a criminal offence. 2) He will attempt to evict you through the courts. This will fail. With option 1, if he does manage to remove you, he will be committing a criminal offence and you will be entitled to very substantial damages (although you would have to sue him to see it). With option 2, you are looking at at least 2 and a half months from now until he can actually legally evict. Probably substantially longer. If the first approach above fails however, do not be under any illusions - you will need to leave in due course. But ensure that you enforce your security of tenure and do not voluntarily leave after 2 weeks unless it is in YOUR interest to do so. Please do come back and let us know how you get on. I suspect there may be a bit more to this saga yet, but stand your ground.

Needless to say, that is not valid notice. No way you or her need to leave in 2 weeks. I assume the landlord does not live in the same building?

I agree fully, hence my above post.

Stu, I have not had a go at you. I have attempted to prevent the OP from performing any actions on your advice as it is not relevant on this thread. By all means, ask the site team to have a look.

Tenant's Repairing Obligations The tenant has a duty to treat the property in a 'tenant-like manner'. This is defined by the Court of Appeal in the leading case of Warren v Keen [1953] 2 All ER 1118, CA. Basically, the tenant must take proper care of the premises, and must repair damage to the premises caused, wilfully or negligently, by him, his family, or his guests. If the damp is due to condensation, the tenant pays the cost of the repairs. Condensation is due to the tenant's failure to keep the premises properly ventilated. (Sorry Quote isnt working for some reason). Ed - in this scenario, can the tenant possibly by found negligent for not ventilating the room when no manual or mechanical form of ventilation existed?

Stu - you have muddied the waters by posting information that was not relevant to the thread. It muddys the waters insomuch that what you posted and the way you posted it implied that it was relevant, therefore giving the impression of certain rights that do not exist. This is why information not pertinent to the issue raised specifically within the thread should not be posted.

To try and bring this particular conversation to a close. My point mainly stu is that your information, although useful generally, doesnt help the OP at all due to the circumstances, so we should avoid muddying the waters with it.

Stu ok fair points, but then your last statement has meant that your post is irrelevant to this thread? And, it should be noted, that the requirement for RSLs (Housing Associations to the layman) to abide by R2R only applies with England. Not Wales or Scotland.

BTW - apologies, I'm not intending to rip your post to shreds. Just it isnt applicable here.

OK but: - You said England and Scotland - that specific act does not apply to England. - The Right to Repair acts apply only to council properties (to my knowledge) not HA. - You omitted that repairs are not covered should they cost more than £250 which is certainly plausible with a boiler fault. - Hot water going off between the start of May and end of October is not covered anyway.

Stu, Some good advice. But can you tell me what law backs this part up??

The obvious solution then would be to make the window openable would suggest this to the landlord. It is pretty unlikely they are going to go to the level of putting in dedicated mechanical ventilation (i.e. a fan).

All I would say is that pretty much any standard firewall these days will perform deep packet inspection, and identify the traffic based upon content and not simply port. I manage our corporate firewalls (for an organisation a lot smaller and a lot less technologically advanced than a SP on the level of Orange), and all of our devices perform DPI. Of course, if Orange choose to utilise this functionality is another matter - although the fact that they allow SMTP traffic to their own servers and it isnt a carte blanche block, would imply they do. Although of course this could simply be a destination IP and port based ACL on the core network.

1) Bathroom issue really depends on the individual layout of the bathoom. Does the bathroom have openable windows and do you open these during showers/baths etc? 2) I would simply say to the landlord that you would rather any issues are not discussed with your friend and discussed with you directly. If the LL is reasonable, they should be OK with this - they are treating it somewhat more informally than they should be, but this may be down to the initial way in which the tenancy commenced. 3) I wouldnt pay any bank fees until the LL shows you proof that they occurred. If they did, yes you are liable.

Most HAs have a specified complaints procedure (my employer certainly does). I would be inclined to speak to the officer tomorrow, ask her to raise a formal complaint. If this does not produce the required result, I would then formalise with a letter of complaint to someone higher up, there is generally someone responsible for these.

OK it isnt the appropriate legal act, but: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1075385183&type=RESOURCES This link states: More generally, I would be surprised if the act of being a guarantor constitutes as a "purchase".

Am I the only one who finds this behaviour abhorrent? There is a potential the OP has committed criminal damage and trespass with his actions, regardless of the intentions. The law may or may not allow such claiming of property (and I believe, by the way, that the law on this was tightened up not too long ago - you must give formal notification to the existing owner IIRC), but we are not talking about some empty plot of grassland here, we are talking about a structure which the OP has begun the process of, and is talking about, breaking in to. I do not feel that we should advise on this situation.

If you wanted someone to move into your house as a lodger, I can guarantee that you wouldnt want to grant them tenancy rights. You would not want to place someone into your own HOME who has an extended degree of security of tenure. BTW - much of the ambiguity is yours and yours alone. Without the exclusive possession of a full dwelling, I fail to see any.

Generally speaking, your HA will publish (or at least have available) certain timescales within which they consider a certain type of repair would be completed within. I would have said that a boiler fault should have most certainly been fixed within this timescale, despite the summer months. Would be inclined to raise it as a formal complaint with your local housing officer (presuming there is one).

Do they do it on a port level though or on a traffic inspection level? If the latter then you wont be able to circumvent using a different port, probably only Secure SMTP.