UK Landlord Forum / Life

 
Where should I start..

We have left the property early due to family issues, mother inlaw had to go back to her country and she left my brother inlaw with us to continue his studies here. Now that the family has 4 persons, we cannot continue to live in a 1 bed flat.

There is also a issue with our neighbours upstairs who are having parties and loud music mainly every night at about 3-4 am. We have filled many complains with the police and local authorities but they keep going on and waking my 5 years old son who is not able to attend school on the days they are listening to loud music.

Most of the neighbours complained as well and not to mention the smell of weed coming from their flat. We had to close our fresh air supply as the smell was coming in even with the windows shut.

We gave 2 months notice on the 22nd of October to our agent and left the property on 18th of December.
Despite the 2 months notice, they only start advertising the flat on 20th November for £1200 and a week and later put the price up to £1250, which only makes it harder to find another tenant.

They keep stating that we are liable for the rent until 13th April 2021 or another tenant is moving in.
Another tenant moved in on the 16th January 2021, therefore rent is due until the 15th January 2021

Bearing in mind our issues that the family is larger and the Covid 19, we can't afford be left without the deposit.
is there anything we can do to challenge the agent?

Many thanks
Adrian Manea

The first point to remember is that whatever changed in your family's circumstances,it is not the landlord's problem. He is also not responsible for  the issue with noisy neighbours.If you owned the flat yourself you would still have to deal with such situations,and would not be likely to just move out.
It is usual practice to start advertising a place around a month before it becomes vacant.Doing so earlier is often a waste of time. Did your landlord give his consent in writing to end your tenancy and financial obligations as soon as it was relet? He will also be entitled to take his costs for reletting the place out of your deposit. Quite honestly,it was rather silly of you to take in another adult, Covid has affected everybody one way or another,and I can't see how it is relevant to your question? You also vacated the property at a very bad time of year for reletting from a landlord's point of view.You seem to think he should take the financial hit for the decisions you made. If you have proof that another tenant lives there, what response did you get when you pointed this out?














     

- I think you need to be clear about the expiry date of your tenancy agreement.  If you decide to give a 2 months notice to your agency when you're in a fixed term tenancy ending in April then yes you will be liable until April unless a tenant is found earlier and in your case a tenant was found earlier so they should have returned your deposit.

- You can challenge them if your deposit is not returned because they did eventually find a tenant but cannot blame them for the time it took, have you been helpful with letting the prospective tenants in for a viewing? They could have put the rent up from £1200 to £1250 simply because similar properties in the same area were let at this rate. 

- Noise: The agency cannot control the behaviour of your neighbours, by the way it really is annoying for tenants to complain about their neighbours' making too much noise because there isn't much the agents can do about this, the most they can do is inform the block management company, send a letter to the neighbours or to their landlord/agency, however you live there so it's your responsibility to report them to your local authority.

- As Heavykarma mentioned, your family's circumstances is not the landlords problem, you shouldn't have even allowed your brother in law to live with you,  if the letting agents were not notified of this then it is a breach of your tenancy terms.