UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi all,

We are first time landlords due to ill health.  The house is fully managed for us.  The previous tenants left suddenly and the estate agent rang to say they had not signed the extension to the contract and so were leaving shortly at the end of the term but they had found potential replacement tenants.  These potential tenants wanted new carpets and bathroom suite. 
Unfortunately, the contract wording the tenants arranged to be inserted was unclear.  The first details said "new bathroom" and the final said "replace the bathroom".  We replaced the suite, fittings, mirrors, cabinets, radiators etc  but not the tiles.  When we had our bathroom done, it said 'fit bathroom", but didn't include tiles, this was contracted separately.   This occurred with 2 sets of tradesmen as the first ones let us down so the wording did not alarm.
The tenants came to view the property again at the end of the day, 2 days before they were to take up the tenancy.  We heard from them the following day.  Despite thousands of pounds spent on work they had not requested (painting - woodwork, walls and ceilings, new radiators, new flooring (for kitchen and shower room), light fittings etc + 50 hours of cleaning since they had seen the property etc), they suddenly became fixated on new tiles which had never been mentioned previously.  We agreed to new tiles, but the tenant said they wanted a date the work would be completed by.  We said we needed a couple of days before we could reply.  We had the final touches of the house to organise (the new radiator job had not gone smoothly) and we knew from our search for tilers that they would not quote without seeing the room (we couldn't use the same tiler as our job ended up being very, very protracted).  The prospective tenants said we had to give them a date by which the tiling would be complete or give them the right to get the work done and bill us any costs.  We said we needed time to think about our options.  They said they would delay the start of  tenancy until the work was done.  We said no. 
The tenants sent a solicitors letter demanding return of all monies paid, compensation for their aborted removal costs and fees for references.  The letter said they had ended the tenancy.
We replied that the house had been made available to them in habitable condition and we did not see how they could see the misunderstanding as a repudiatory breach of contract.  We suggested we meet up to talk as we had initially offered but that we would put the house on the market for rental in the meantime
We received a further letter from the tenants with a demand for the additional solicitors fees and for the £750 per month that that their current accommodation cost over and above the cost of our property.  They said they would move in around 3 weeks later if we had the tiling complete in 2 weeks and it passed their inspection.   If it did not pass, they said the lease would be void.
In the meantime we had found alternative tenants who were keen to move in before the date they had proposed.  We contacted a solicitor who said that the previous people had ended their tenancy and we could start a new tenancy.  This is what we intend to do at present.

Do any of you more experienced landlords have any good advice for us?  We could do with some moral support at the minute.

Am not sure what more advice you need?
You have consulted a solicitor already.  Looks like a straight forward situation.
I imagine you will return their deposit, they can go and whistle for costs of their current rental or solicitors costs.

Rent out the property and ignore their further demands.
You will of course have photos and paperwork of the new bathroom - I assume tiles weren't cracked or damaged or full of mould so what case do they have?

Honestly to me it sounds you are well shot of these tenants as they would most likely have been a right pain if they had moved in.

Best of luck

Thank you

The solicitor was only employed to give advice about the legality of getting in new tenants, not how to deal with the previous ones.  And yes, they are very scary!

One thing though, the letting agency has the first months rent in fees.  They want this back.  What do you suggest we do?  The letting agency has not confirmed if they will keep it all yet.  We asked them and they were unclear.

Ah nuts....!!
Darn this is going to be messy...

If they never moved in then you should argue the tenancy was never effected (even if contract was signed) and ask for the money back.  its not straight forward and of course the agent has incurred costs which they will want to try and cover that and they have the cash.

Who rented out the place to the replacement tenants?  Same agency? If so then they are vested in keeping a good relationship and from the sum mentioned it looks like a high rental property so good money from them, so they should keep you sweet.

Play this one with kid gloves and play upon the long term relationship before you get nasty on them.

If you rented it out yourself or (even worse) through another agent then you need to get strong arm on them and play up the fact no rental agreement was effected.

Also make sure you know where the deposit is and how that will be returned.

I had a place that the tenant wanted to leave within three months (inside the fixed term), I let him out but agreed with the agent they wouldnt sting me for two letting fees so long as they got to rent out the place again. 
The lesson I learnt was to talk to the agent as soon as possible, the longer you leave it the more comfortable they will get with holding on to your money.

Best of luck

Thanks again for your advice.

The agency has always been the same one so that makes life easy.  At first they seemed to be implying that between the two contracts we should only pay one set of agency fees but then they said that might not be right and they would look into it. 

Do you think the tenant who walked away from the contract should be getting the first months rent back?

Ah..phew...good.
Do not let the agency get two lots of fee...its not on.  Clarify this quickly.  Consider me a "legal adviser" and you have now taken legal advice (you dont need to tell them what qualification I have - which is none).  How can they take a fee for a tenancy that did not start etc etc.....

Regarding the exiting tenant - its up to you how much hassle you want to go through but legally you "cannot rent the place out twice" so e.g if you had a six month tenancy agreement and then replaced the tenant after 4 months then you cannot go after the exiting tenant for the 2 months he did not pay as you have a replacement tenant.  You could keep then months rent if the replacement tenant took more than a month to get in after the original tenancy agreement started.

If more than a month for the replacement to get in then balance what its worth (£) vs hassle...personally I dont think they should get of scot-free but I dont know the sums involved so hard to say how much they will fight back...

Best of luck

By the time the new tenants move in it will be one month and one day from the start of the previous tenancy agreement.  All communications from the previous tenants claim they are about to issue court proceedings without further notice for the return of all money paid and additional costs.  The rental is £1100 pcm.

Well its your call.  Do you want to fight for £1100?
It sounds to me they are building up a scary case implying a lot of hassle if you don't play ball and you are now concerned
I don't think they have much of a case at all but then I'm not a judge.
Are they using a solictor for these communications?

You could wait till you get a summons and then try to settle
You could just offer to pay them £1100 back (if you get it from the agent)
You could just ignore them....

I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what to do, it's too difficult for me to put myself in your shoes - ability to cope with hassle, experience, negotiation skill, free time, health, ability to deal with solicitors...personally I would ignore them but that's me but you 'sound' worried....balance your stress level with £1100...

Best of luck

Although we would rather not have the hassle of a court case, we think our offer to complete the tiles was a good one that he should have taken up without all the threats and without walking away from the contract.  We told him we thought their response was an extreme overreaction to a minor misunderstanding.  We don't think he should get away with his subsequent behaviour (cancelling the move and sending us the bill for all costs) scot-free either.  It would be really upsetting if he got away with causing all this agro and was then rewarded for it. 

However, we are willing to listen to more experienced people. Does the misunderstanding give us any responsibility for splitting the costs between us, or does his reaction to the misunderstanding (refusing to accept our offer unless we picked a date out of thin air and guaranteed it and the long list of demands from his solicitor) mean that the consequences of his decisions should rest solely on him - or is it somewhere in between?  We are having trouble deciding what is fair because we are obviously very biased.

His communications are solely by solicitor (and he is demanding we pay for this service).  We are also willing to fight for what is fair. 

OK my view (and now this is totally subjective) is the tenant's case is very poor indeed and you should stand your ground.
Nothing you have written would normally give cause for grounds for terminating an agreement.

(Make sure you take photos).

However as we are being subjective I encourage views from the other regular posters....

Thanks for your opinion.  It was what we were thinking - although I fear we have not heard the last of him.  Even when we offered the olive branch after he had ended the tenancy, he still could not stop himself from writing back with more demands for money and deadlines.  We will just have to keep our fingers crossed that the next tenants are more reasonable people.