I am seeking some advice here if someone can offer it, we entered a fixed term letting agreement mid August but we are now concerned over our physical safety due to another tenant renting on the same building who exhibits antisocial behavior, including his guests. An incident with one of the tenants guests has been reported to the met police who advised to contact them on 999 if they show up at our door again. Long story short, I want to leave from here without paying an extra penny and right now.
Legal Advice: Breaking Letting Contract Early due to welfare concerns
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Darrell
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Why would you get compo and who would pay it?
Marquisofraspberry
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Is your landlord the antisocial tenants landlord also? If not I doubt there is much that your landlord can do.
why is it the landlord’s responsibility to deal with bad neighbours?
i have not heard of that being the case in a rental agreement
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As I understand it the landlord has a duty of care in respect of his tenants, so he is responsible
Darrell
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I rent out 2 flats which are both in small blocks of 8 flats. If a tenant or flat owner is as the op described I’m certainly not going to offer compo or anything else.
Darrell
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I’ll be speaking to the company that handles my rentals to check on this.
Darrell
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Not paying rent will make you in breach of contract.
Strange advice from the lawyer, and an ethical/moral question here, why should the land lord pay compensation unless he or she instructed this bad apple to give you grief?
Or has the landlord accepted this said persons as a tennant and not taken action when they've misbehaved etc?
The info you've provided is sketchy at best, so to advise would be rather difficult.
A sensible approach would be to discuss with your landlord early termination of the agreement on the basis of the reasons you've stated. Knee jerk reaction of not paying and asking for compo is just going to annoy the landlord and doesn't give them a chance to rectify anything.
Dickster
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If the other person is not a tenant of your landlords I don’t see what it has to do with him, he can’t control other tenants. That’s a matter for the authorities.
I agree , the most I think you can expect would be goodwill from the landlord to release you from the contract early .
As it is , if you entered into a fixed term rental agreement , I would imagine you are contractually bound to pay the rental up to the end of the period you signed up for , whether you continue to occupy the premises or not .
Unless the antisocial occupants are also tenants of the same landlord ( in which case he might possibly be able to evict them after going through due process , but this is not simple ) there will be little he can do about it , and as you have already been advised by the police , best to just keep calling them if anything further happens , and let the police deal with it .
As it is , if you entered into a fixed term rental agreement , I would imagine you are contractually bound to pay the rental up to the end of the period you signed up for , whether you continue to occupy the premises or not .
Unless the antisocial occupants are also tenants of the same landlord ( in which case he might possibly be able to evict them after going through due process , but this is not simple ) there will be little he can do about it , and as you have already been advised by the police , best to just keep calling them if anything further happens , and let the police deal with it .
D
Deleted upon users own request member 138506
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I imagine the solicitors letter to the landlord is just a frightener with the aim to release the tenant from his contract so that he can leave the property as soon as possible without penalty. It is likely that this intimidation of landlord could work rather than him incur expense of costly legal proceedings.
MrGreedy
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Regardless of what the contract says and what can be enforced, a further mutual agreement that both parties are happy with is of course possible, and both parties (if they agree) can end the contract early.
If I were the landlord and I were an accommodating type (I am) then I would say as long as I'm not out of pocket, then we can look to end the contract early. This would be something along the lines of the landlord (or their agent) starts looking for a new tenant ASAP and you pay the finding fee and any rent up until the day the new tenant moves in, and probably in these coronavirus times, a cleaning fee.
This leaves the landlord in the position they would have been if you had not wanted to break the contract, you might get away with paying some relatively modest costs, and in exchange you get out of the contract early. Sounds reasonable to me.
Unless as others have asked, is there more to this?
If I were the landlord and I were an accommodating type (I am) then I would say as long as I'm not out of pocket, then we can look to end the contract early. This would be something along the lines of the landlord (or their agent) starts looking for a new tenant ASAP and you pay the finding fee and any rent up until the day the new tenant moves in, and probably in these coronavirus times, a cleaning fee.
This leaves the landlord in the position they would have been if you had not wanted to break the contract, you might get away with paying some relatively modest costs, and in exchange you get out of the contract early. Sounds reasonable to me.
Unless as others have asked, is there more to this?
Exactly , and why I suggested in the very first reply to this thread that the OP writes to his landlord , setting out the situation as he sees it and asking to be released from the contract .
It is always best to start from a position of communication and co-operation than one of confrontation .
The downside to all this is that these antisocial neighbours are likely to make the flat less easy to let again . I think the OP said they moved in after him ; if not , I wonder if there is any history of trouble before he moved in and if there is any way he can find this out ?
Correction : he didn't say they moved in after him , in fact from his opening text I sense they didn't - so if the bad neighbours were pre-existing , did the landlord know ? ( could that be why the previous tenants moved out ? ) and if he did know and did not point this out , does that change the position in any way ?
Questions not aimed at any one in particular .
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There was new laws that came out possibily 2 years ago you only need to give 30 days notice before moving out now, we are in scotland so may be different though
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Riva811
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Right so my lawyer found to the letter that the landlord or managing agent are responsible for knowing who their tenants are and are responsible for their behaviour. Also it is my right to enjoy the property without being disturbed which I am not. This is part of the rules introduced a couple of years ago as mentioned by Wolfie1.
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It's the usual way. Assuming the recpient of the letter is sufficiently cowed,
Lawyer's client gets what they want.
Lawyer pockets a small but not unreasonable amount of money for the small amount of work.
Lawyer looks effective. Happy client will recommend them or come back.
It gets more interesting in terms of risk vs reward if the recipient of the letter is not cowed ........ at this point the Lawyer might start having to do a bit more real work - and of course the client is potentially facing some higher charges once that happens.
