UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi all,

Thanks for letting me join. A few months ago I received a job offer abroad and we decided to let our house through a fully managed letting agent. We were in the house when the tenant viewed the house at the time.

The tenant is physically quite distinct, they drive a distinct luxury SUV and bizarrely their previous address was a house that had been purchased for £1m+ just 45 mins away, not even 7 months ago - it's much larger than ours as well.

We have kept in touch with our neighbours and have some concerns:
- The tenant has refused to let the builder come in for some snagging work that they needed to catch up on
- The property was unoccupied for at least 3-4 weeks after the start of the tenancy
- The distinct looking gentleman and distinct luxury SUV have not been spotted by our neighbours, but instead a different car and different looking gentleman instead. We have a picture of someone who definitely does not look like the gentlemen we saw when he viewed the property
- Our estate agent had advised this couple would be 'perfect' as they were childless
- Our old neighbours met the chap who is now living at the house and he informed him that he was expecting his wife and 3 kids to shortly join him from overseas
- Yesterday and today a series of 7-10 different people were seen coming and going from our house, but no moving truck was around. It is unclear if these individuals are residing in the house or not


At this point we have suspicion that the person/people living at the property aren't the ones that signed the contract and passed referencing.

My concerns are:
- What kind of evidence do we need to collect to establish these facts that they are not the people who passed referencing and how can we legally do so? I imagine I can't fly back to the UK, open the door and ask them for their passports can I!?
- Who and when should we share our suspicions with? Council? Home office? Estate agents? Police?
- If it turns out these individuals in the property are not who they say they are, could we as landlords be potentially liable if it turns out they are illegal immigrants or human trafficking victims?

My suspicion is that these people are being fronted by their wealthy, established relative/friend because they would not have passed referencing for whatever reason.

 I'm nervous because we're 6 weeks into a yearlong contract with 6-month break clause, we do have legal protection in the contract stating that tenants are liable for rent until new tenants have been found in case of breach of contract but don't know the level of evidence required to go down that route.

Should I also be sharing any of this with our landlord insurance company? We have legal cover with them too, but being naive first timers I am not sure about the sequence of steps and strength of evidence required.

Sorry for the long post!

The builder not being allowed access is a concern.

I've never been in a situation like this but it seems like a 'how can I get them out' type of question.

Anecdotally, from forum research it would seem that any legal action you take now would take some time. Meanwhile you have a legal break clause (not that I like them as they seem a pointless complexity V a 6 month fixed term then periodic) only 4.5 months away.

I'd be inclined to keep schtum and exercise the break clause on the legal tenants as you know them. That way you will hopefully be shielded from finding out who is actually in your house and having to deal with that.