surrender of tenancy from landlady but not official?

[pinklisar]

Hi

my mum currently rents a property from a private landlord and has been having trouble lately paying the rent. She has been off sick with depression since Sept / Oct last year. Before she was off sick she did get into some rent arrears. She agreed to pay the rent of £450 per month plus £100 off the arrears but once she went off sick she was not able to stick to this. My brother was living with her and helped her out as much as he could.

The landlady has been sending my mum mixed messages and I don't think she is acting entirely legally. In January she said my mum could continue to live there and pay the £450 a month rent (which she has been) and when my mum sorted herself out she could than start paying £100 a month of the rent arrears. Later that day she sent a text message to my brother saying that from the middle of February she wanted the rent to be paid at £112 a week. The tenancy actually says the rent is to be paid £450 monthly. My brother explained that they wouldn't be able to do that as they got paid monthly and the landlady basically said that it wasn't her problem. My mum last paid £450 on 11th February. My brother has also since moved out. This morning my mum received a letter from the landlady saying

 

Following my text sent to you on Friday 25th February - I quote -"Still no reply or rent from you, I am now officially stating the today Friday 25th February, that you have vacated the property -(landlady name and phone number)

 

Again you have failed to reply or pay the rent or any arrears.

 

Your son has informed me that he has now vacated the property.

 

I am treating these actions as a Surrender of The Tenancy, and that the property is unoccupied. This means to take over the property, and re-let or sell. I shall also be informing the Housinf Benefit Office (in case of any overpayment) and Council Tax, Water etc, that the property is now empty.

 

I will therefore be travelling to the property from (her home across country) to meet with (local estate agent) within the next seven days, for a valuation and inspection of teh property.

And as under the terms of my insurance the property must not be unoccupied for more than 30 days.

 

Any correspondance to this address (different address to her home address)

 

THIS LETTER IS WITHOUT MALICE OR PREDUJICE

 

Yours sincerely

 

Landlady

 

in handwriting at the bottom of the letter she has written

ps please do not let us travel all this way if you are still living in the property, as we will be satying tehre, thank you.

 

 

My mums name is on the tenancy, not my brothers so why is she treating my brothers leaving home as surrender of tenancy?

She knows my mum has lost her phone so why send her text messages?

I have received phone calls and emails form her about my mums rent arrears, I am not a guarantor, why is she contacting me?

My mum has not agreed to a surrender of tenancy , she is paying the rent throughout the month, granted it is not always in one lump sum but she gets the full £450 and the last payment of £450 was on 11th Feb so how is that no rent paid?

Why is she contacting housing benefit? She did not want the housing benefit paid to her, it gets paid to my mum and my mum puts it in her bank account. She gets £120 a fortnight from housing benefit.

 

What should she do?

 

also, forgot to mention that although there has been talk from the landlady of eviction my mum has not actually received an eviction notice and the rent arrears are less than two months rent and my mum is not refusing to pay the rent and never has.

Edited March 2, 2011 by pinklisar

[MrShed]

Interesting.

 

Does your mum have an Assured Shorthold Tenancy? (AST)?

 

What is the current level of rent arrears?

[pinklisar]

she has an AST which she signed when she moved in August 08 and it is now a periodical one. The rent arrears in january was £760. She paid a full months rent in Jan and Feb. Marchs rent is being paid on 14th for £450. Today she paid off £40 off the arrears and she is paying another £100 off the arrears on Saturday so as far as I know the arrears are only £720 at the minute. My brother sent the landlady a text message today on behalf of my mum saying that she has not given my mum the appropriate amount of time of notice, my mum has now involved housing aid and £40 was being paid today, another £100 off the arrears on saturday and a full months rent on 14th March and she has never refused to pay the rent and is still paying money off the arrears.

Housing aid have also told my mum that they want to get enviromental health in due to the state of the house, the toilet leaks, the guttering leaks, the front door is rotten, the kitchen windows leak, the only form of heating is a coal fire and 1 storage heater (both in the living room), the windows are rotten and one looks like it is about to fall out, the kitchen roof leaks in 3 places. Granted, she hasn't told the landlady about these problems but they have been like that since she moved in. Rightly or wrongly I told my mum to get her rent sorted and up to date before telling the landlady about these problems as I can just see it causing more trouble. There has also been no reply from the landlady to the text my brother sent her.

[MrShed]

OK I would communicate now only in writing with the landlady.

 

I would send a simple letter back to her stating that the property has not been vacated by the tenant (i.e. herself) and that she still has occupancy of the property, as per the tenancy agreement.

 

See what the response is. Further actions by the landlady after this point are likely to cross the line into unlawful eviction.

[pinklisar]

should she also request that all correspondance be between her and the landlady by writing as the re have been text messages / phone calls / emails to me and my brother (who was living with my mum at the time) in the past if the landlady couldn't get hold of my mum

[mariner51]

What date in 2008 did the T start?

What date each month is the rent due? pres payable in advance.

[pinklisar]

I am writing with reply to your letter dated 26th February 2011 and I am informing you that the above property has not been vacated by the tenant (myself). I have occupancy of this property as per the tenancy agreement.

I would also like to ask that all future correspondence be made between you and myself in writing , not by text message or phone calls to my son or daughter as I am the legal tenant as per the tenancy agreement.

 

is that ok?

[pinklisar]

the tenancy started in August 2008 but i'm unsure of the exact date and the rent was due on the 1st of each month but the landlady agreed for it to be paid on my mums pay day which varies.

[pinklisar]

i've just spoken to my brother and he has forwarded a text message to me that he received from the landlady last week which I think is quite worrying which said

hi, how are you doing? Just one thing now I need you to give your keys back to me to finalise it for you as I don't want you involved with the debt collector. I have not involved you or your sisters (me) details with the debt collector. The keys need to be handed into an estate agents, they are waiting for your keys asap - please let me know when this is done, thanks'

 

and she sent another one asking if he still lived in the house when he'd already told her he'd moved out

 

Couple of things - mum rented private, not through an estate agent so why would he give keys to estate agent. Fair enough if she is gonna go through an estate agent but my mum has had no notice of this, why would she give the keys to the house she is still living in to a complete stranger?

Why would the landlady give his details to a debt collector when my mum is the tenant. He is not on the tenancy agreement.

Why would she say that she is not giving my details to a debt collector? This is nothing to do with me. It is my mums tenancy agreement, I just happen to live in the house opposite.

the landlady has also said that she is gonna send a debt collector around to my mums house to collect £112 weekly rent when the tenancy agreement states that the rent is £450 and to be paid monthly and she has had nothing in writing to state otherwise and also £450 x 12 (monthly) = £5400 and £112 x 52 (weekly) = £5824 so if my mum paid weekly than her rent would increase by £424 a year. There is no mention of this being used to pay of the rent arrears.

sorry for being a bit moronic here but this is really worrying me how my mum is being treated ans that she is gonna end up homeless and i've never rented so don't know the temrs.

thanks for all your help guys x

[mariner51]

Unless LL amended and initialled the variation to rent due date, or provided you with a signed letter confirming the change, which was hopefully kept by T, then LL can legally serve a s21/8 notice for repossession and rent due, from today. (Arrears £600 + Mar rent due on 1 Mar £450 is more than 2 months rent)

IMO changing rent to weekly payments may cause LL probs with AST, however she is allowed to arrange a signed repayment schedule for debt recovery (unpaid due rent = debt) £450 pcm = £103.85 / wk so £112 / wk is less than £10 / wk repayment of arrears + 1 wk rent due.

 

It sounds like LL has previously tried to help your mum by accepting late rent, but is now getting worried that things are not improving. Serving a s21/8 notice for repossession is the LLs only legal option.

Did T pay a deposit at start of Tenancy and is it protected in an approved deposit scheme? ie has LL provided details?

[pinklisar]

my mum (tenant) has received nothing in writing except for the surrender of tenancy letter which she received today. She hasn't received a section 21 notice, all she has is the letter which says that as my brother has moved out than she is treating it as surrender of tenancy. Is that letter she sent her legal? We both know that she could be served an eviction notice but she hasn't. The landlady has been lovely to my mum but recently something has changed and I don't know what. The deposit was paid into a deposit scheme and my mum has the details of that. I just can't get my head round the letter she received today and there was no mention of the weekly £112 payment being used for rent and rent arrears. The landlady told my mum that she would forget abput the rent arrears for now which she was paying £100 per month.

[pinklisar]

she also wanted at one point my brother to start paying the rent as she didn't think my mum could cope with it (my mum has depression)

[MrShed]

Lets be absolutely, 100% clear on this.

 

The facts are thus:

 

- The tenancy is a single tenant (mother of OP).

- The tenant (the only legal entity of any interest here) is still resident in the property.

- No formal written notice of any form has been issued.

 

The tenant has an absolute legal right to reside in the property until such a time as notice has been validly served, AND said notice has expired. Moreover, she can still remain until a court order of possession is granted to the landlord.

 

ANY ACTION BY THE LANDLORD to circumvent or otherwise attempt to enforce the removal of the tenant from the property, be it through explicit eviction attempts or intimidation (including the withholding/cancelling of utilities) is a criminal offence.

 

Clearly there are various issues here regarding arrears, but as per the original query, they are neither here nor there. In addition, the landlord has absolutely no right to unilaterally change rent amount or payment day.

 

(As an aside, to query an above post, I have never heard of any legal right of the landlord to have some kind of written debt repayment schedule. This is certainly not laid out in any statute law. If this is indeed the case I would be interested to see the legal basis.)

 

All that said, if the landlady wants the tenant out, she will (eventually) succeed. If they do not follow the correct process first time round, this could yet take many months - all the same, the tenant should now consider the very real prospect that they will have to move at some point in the future.

 

That point however, is NOT within the next 7 days - or, realistically, the next 7 weeks.

[mariner51]

"however she is allowed to arrange a signed repayment schedule for debt recovery"

 

Is that the phrase you refer to MrShed? I did not mean to imply it was enshrined in L&T legislation, but it is a mechanism for debt recovery by instalments across many cases. The debtor's sig on a written doc is to indicate she is aware and accepts the payment scedule proposed. Useful if you have to eventually take debtor to Court to show s/he has been given another opportunity to pay debt in instalments

As I suggested & the OP confirms, LL has been helpful toward tenant until now but is now 'concerned' and acting irrationally.

Many debt counsellor's would think the Ts situation is in a precarious downward spiral. Even Shelter suggests rent is a priority payment.

As you say, it may take several weeks but at some stage the T can expect to be legally evicted.

If the LL comes to her senses, this is most easily achieved with a properly served s21/8 and court hearing, unless the T can keep the rent owed to below £900 (2 months) at time of notice served & hearing.

Certainly 2 months rent owed (

I do not know the Ts locale but would suggest there is not much rented property in the area below £400 pcm and prob none at the basic single person HB rate she is receiving so time to mend bridges with current LL, clear arrears and pay rent on time from any available, affordable sources.

[MrShed]

Apologies mariner, I misunderstood that particular sentence.

[MissACollin]

Hello,

 

As an agent i can understand the Landladys issues with regards to the rent not being paid in/on time. However two wrongs dont make a right.

 

There is a procedure to follow in order to remove you from the property.

 

She first has to serve you a section 21 notice, with two months notice as required by law. This notice must be served on or prior to the contracts anniversary date.

E.g. if the contract start date is the 2nd of the month, she has to serve the section 21 on or before the 2nd of the month in order for the notice to be valid. You have to have a minimum of two full months notice.

 

Should your mother not vacate by this date, the landlady will then have to go to court in order to obtain a order of possesion. This will set a date that your mother must vacate the property.

 

Should your mother not vacate by this date, the landlady will have to go back to court and the court will instruct baliffs to have your mother physically removed from the property. So best to try and avoid this last stage if you can as it will be stressful.

 

As difficult as it may be, i would ignore any calls and respond to any text message by saying "please send me a correspondance in writing, i cannot reply to text messages."

 

She can also not instruct a debt collector without going to court.

 

The landlady also cannot chase you or your brother for payment, as you are not tenants, she can also not serve any notices or actions against you or your brother as you are not tenants at the property and have no obligation to it.

 

I hope that helps.

[pinklisar]

thanks everyone for all your help, things are a lot clearer now

[bedlington83]

She can also not instruct a debt collector without going to court.

Why do you think that?