[Hester]

Hi All

My situation in a nutshell...

I live with a friend in her family home which her mother has rented for the past 24 years. Her mother moved out and bought a house, and now sublets a room to me. I don't have a tenancy agreement and I didn't give a deposit.

Her mum kept letting herself into the flat without giving me notice, the other day I told her off about it and she retaliated by giving me one month's notice and ordering me to move out.

Things are very tense between me and my friend's mum, she is a very volatile and selfish person and hates the fact that I stood up to her. She apparently saw me as a "housesitter", not a tenant, and will not acknowledge that I have or had any tenant rights.

My friend has said that her mum would have no qualms in emptying all my belongings on to the street, changing the locks and denying that I ever lived there should I continue standing up to her.

I'm really unhappy with the idea of rolling over and letting her treat me badly, and I'm really disappointed with my "friend" for apparently having no issues with this sort of behaviour!

BUT - I'm terrified of coming home to find this has happened before I manage to get out of there!

My questions are:

What would I be able to do if she did chuck all my things onto the street?!

What would be proof that I lived there?

Could I call the police and would they let me back into the property?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!

x

[therealcleo]

To be honest with you, I don't think your problem is with the legal issues - I think you need to get out of there asap.

I can understand that you want to stand your ground and although you do have some rights (albeit hard to prove), what appears to matter msot is your safety and the safety of your posessions.

I recommend you move out as soon as possible.

[markinberks]

Um... you could be on a hiding to nothing.

First of all, if she has given you notice to quit, you have to take that at face value and move out within the alloted time span. If you don't you really do run the risk of coming home to find the locks changed and your stuff in the street.

If she has given you a month's notice make sure you don't pay for any period beyond that. i.e. if you pay your rent a month in advance and she informed you two weeks after you had paid the rent that you had one month's notice, only pay for the remaining two weeks. In fact I would be tempted to hold off payment until I left and then pay in arrears, but you would need to get agreement from her on this.

If you have any concerns about security of your stuff it may be worth renting a lock up space - there are a number of companies offering storage space around. Shift all your large bits and pieces out and live out of a suitcase for the remaining period.

If your landlady comes back with 'I'm sorry I didn't mean it' tack, DON'T roll over and say OK. Say you want a formal agreement. My guess is that she hasn't declared your rent as part of her income and sees it as a nice way to shore up the mortgage with little or no risk attached. Unless she's got someone else to come in and replace you there will be a bit of a hole in her finances.

Oh and finally, you really are better off out of this situation. Whilst it may be cheaper, you have absolutely no security unless you can establish that you are a tenant paying rent and not a casual acquaintance who is staying there and making a contribution to living costs. At present it would be your word against hers.

[Bluey]

Contact Shelter on their free advice line for tenants - they offer expert advice and you will also find their Tenancy checker (wizard that identifies your type of tenancy) and info on eviction and landlord harassment v. informative. You may also find it helpful to speak to a tenant relations officer at your local council who are used to dealing with rogue landlords. Most council's have someone dedicated to resolving issues in private housing.

Come back to the forum when you've been given expert advice and tell us what you've been told.

I am not qualified to give advice but reckon that if you are classed as a lodger, otherwise known as an excluded occupier (sharing amenities with a live-in landlord) then you have few rights and aren't considered anything more than a guest. This means the landlord only requires to serve reasonable notice and if you overstay, can change the locks.

Do you pay rent to the mother (who has moved out so this may not be classed as her primary residence) or her daughter who lives in?

If, however, you are defined as a tenant (because it's not your landlords primary residence), then your rights are much stronger around the serving of notice, the period that's required to be given and the fact that if you don't leave of your own volition, the landlord has to seek a court order for possession. A landlord that harasses a tenant and illegally evicts a tenant commits an offence. The police don't tend to want to get involved in landlord/tenant issues but you do have a right to being let back into the accommodation (perhaps the council sorts this out) and you can take them to court for compensation.

The absence of a contract or a deposit has no bearing on your rights, just whether you are classed in law as a lodger or a tenant, I reckon. Payment and acceptance of rent can actually be interpreted in law as creating a legal tenancy despite the lack of a formal contract.

With regards to your belongings, I believe this is covered by the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 that obliges a landlord to safely store goods and only dispose of them the legal way. Again, you could either see if the Police will treat it as theft/criminal damage though they shy away from tenancy disputes or you take your landlord to court via the small claims process to seek compensation.

[Hester]

Hi All

Thanks for all the advice.

Spoke to Shelter and they confirmed that I am probably an assured shorthold tenant, maybe even a protected/regulated tenant, despite the fact that I haven't physically signed a tenancy agreement. My friend's mother doesn't live in the property and I pay rent direct to her therefore I have all the basic rights of any tenant. I'm entitled to "quiet enjoyment" and also should have been given 2 months notice, not 1.

I also checked with a police officer friend and he said that unless she'd damaged my things the police would probably just try and mediate to calm the situation down should it have gotten to that stage. Bit crap I think but there you go.

I didn't manage to check with anyone about what I would do if she changed the locks but I intend to double check tomorrow.

There was even a chance that she was overcharging me under the Rent Act 1977, because as hers is a pre-1989 tenancy she is a protected/regulated tenant, and therefore has a "fair", not "market" rent apparently - which I'm pretty sure she wasn't passing on to me!

I am indeed moving out and my intention was never to try and get her to change her mind (in fact I'm leaving next week). I think my main problem was that we didn't agree on any rules/expectations before I moved in. If she had told me that I wasn't a tenant in her eyes, and that she would be letting herself in whenever she wanted to and intended to treat me as a "housesitter", I certainly wouldn't have moved in.

Everyday's a school day I guess!

x

[Bluey]

If she is a regulated tenant with a secure tenancy, often called a 'sitting tenant' then she might be subject to stringent rules herself against sub-letting the property without permission from the landlord or increasing the risk of eviction because it is no longer her primary residence.

A regulated tenancy like this often has strong protection in place but landlords itching to identify a breach on their part so they can evict the tenant and get market rent and less security of tenure for the next set of tenants.

There is also, though, the possibility that she can legitimately pass on the tenancy to her daughter.

However, if you wanted to punish her for her manner, you could try and identify if she has any right to the tenancy now that she has left the property and dob her into the landlord.

Or, perhaps if you can't be bothered to do this research, just enjoy winding her up casually mentioning that a judge is likely to side with the landlord on a discretionary ground for eviction based on the fact that the tenant no longer resides there - i.e. as it's not her primary residence, the judge will give possession back to the landlord.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/advice/advice-4148.cfm

Discretionary grounds include: you have assigned the tenancy or sublet without the landlord's consent.