UK Landlord Forum / Life

I am a landlord of a property where a man was attacked by a banned dog, the police forced entry to the property due to there being another banned dog inside. They shot the dog in my property and caused about £3000 worth of damages, broken front door and internal doors. The tenants were arrested and have been bailed but are not allowed back to the property. They want to surrender the tenancy but not pay for the damage or pay until the property is relet. My agent seems to think I should allow this but it clearly states in the agreement that the damages and rent should be paid until it's relet. I am confused why the letting agent thinks it's appropriate.
They had only been in the house 3 weeks of a 12 month agreement.
 

You agent is absolutely right, you have zero chance of getting rent or damages covered by a tenant who is almost certainly going to jail. It is horrible what has happened, but surely either your insurance or the police should be required to pay for the damage. Getting it ready to relet asap is your priority.   

It's a joint tenancy, they have their own business and there's also a guarantor.
But you are probably right.

It's been a dreadful week, I'm just hoping the victim recovers.

The term in the contract that says that "the damages and rent should be paid until it's relet" isn't legal.

You and your tenant may have more in common than you thought.

Let them go, fix the damage (that the police caused, not the tenant) and move on.

Question: for JP
Why is the clause that the rent should be paid until relet unlawful?

If there is no break clause then isn't the Landlord entitled to enforce the terms of the contract?

[Of course the tenant could go to court and have the contract set aside on grounds of frustration but that would require the tenant to seek that through the court].

The only issue arises when the Landlord claims for damages from the Tenant the Landlord will be prevented from recovering damages that could have been reasonably mitigated (by reletting).

Of course without sight of the clause referred to this may be moot as the clause might be referring to something else.

Just curious if some area of the law has developed since I've looked at this....

Yes,  I assumed from JPK' s response that something must have been legally challenged and caused a change to the law. I was assured by my solicitor years ago that a landlord should not be out of pocket if a tenant leaves early.  I have had that happen several times,  and never had a tenant refuse to pay. 

Quote from: theangrylandlord on March 04, 2025, 04:56:54 PMQuestion: for JP
Why is the clause that the rent should be paid until relet unlawful

Its a peculiarity of the Tenant Fees Act.

The act makes all payments by a tenant to a landlord (or agent) unlawful. And then permits very limited and specific exceptions (like "rent" or a "utility bill"). What's in that term isn't one of those permitted payments.

You are "entitled to enforce the terms of the contract". What you can't do is allow a surrender conditional on a payment other than "the loss suffered by the landlord as a result of the termination of the tenancy". Tenant Fees Act sch3(7)2.

Rent you don't get isn't a "loss".
And, technically, you probably can't have any kind of future "loss" at all. Generally speaking, loss has to have happened.

So, its impossible to agree any "deal" beyond compensation for actual costs incurred in ending a tenancy early. Which means, I think, that landlords probably shouldn't agree to an early termination unless not ending the tenancy is more costly than ending it. That's probably not what was intended, but hey, politicians!

What you are allowed to do is let the tenancy just continue with an understanding that when you find a new tenant to move in, the existing tenants will surrender to allow the new tenancy to begin. They can probably contribute to the reletting costs (but that's also debatable, because, again, they're possibly not a loss). God knows how you'd do that in practice, because the trust required is huge.

My guess is that needs must and people are simply arriving at unlawful solutions.

The risk is that there's a six year window for the tenant to regret their decision and make a (quite hard to defend) claim.

Wow!  Thank you for that explanation!

I recently did end a tenancy early and only asked for the following:

3. As you will appreciate there will be some costs incurred by us which you would need to keep us whole on:
drawing up a Deed of Surrender to terminate the tenancy early
a pro-rated proportion of the agents fee which we have paid upfront.

Maybe by luck/not wishing to scalp the tenant I have not transgressed?

Off to read the Tenant Fees Act... yikes!

Thank you JP.

Np.

It's a complete mess. The people creating the legislation clearly had no idea how tenancies work.

The rental rights legislation fixes the problem by making all tenancies periodic, so your tenants could simply end their tenancy normally. It also means that your agent would/will find it difficult to charge fees in advance (which seems to be a mostly London thing to me).

The agent should refund the fees really, as they can't charge for work they don't have to do, but lets not chase unicorns.