Contract breaches - red flags and next steps

Landlord Discussion
1

Hi all,

Tenant has rented for 20 months, and has been on a rolling contract for the last 8 months. Has been on top of rent, with one blip, where he was late.

Tenant is generally not very communicative and getting time to do periodic inspections can take over 6 weeks. When he communicates, it’s often not clear but not evasive. He also passed all his background checks etc.

We wanted to do an inspection recently (for EICR) and couldn’t get in touch with the tenant for over 2 weeks. After a 24hr email notice, we went to the property, and found the following:

  1. A person who introduced himself as the cousin of the tenant was at the property. This cousin is not verified and obviously not on contract.
  2. There were locks on all the internal doors - these doors never had locks on them before.
  3. A pile of uncollected post in the letterbox.
  4. The kitchen counter top has heavy wear and clearly is being used (last inspection was in Jan)

We have now received a WhatsApp from tenant’s girlfriend (unverified) that

  1. Tenant has not been living in the property for 5 months. He is out of the country, working on a contract.
  2. She lives in the property every so often so it doesn’t look unoccupied, and doesn’t invalidate the landlord insurance.
  3. She has allowed the cousin to live in the property in her absence
  4. The changed locks were her decision

Now, the tenant doesn’t respond on the email channel of communication on the contract. What are my options?

  1. Are these suspicious circumstances or am I being too cautious?
  2. If these are grounds for eviction, is it a Section 21 or a Section 8?
  3. If either eviction route is taken, is there any guidance on OpenRent on next steps?

Many thanks

2

I suggest s21 asap. Also serve a common law Notice to Quit as if it can be shown that the tenant is out of the country and no longer living there, the tenancy would no longer be assured. You will need professional advice on the latter.

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3

My mind is blown every time I read a story like this one.

Don’t even think twice about it, like David said, pursue eviction immediately.

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4

The tenant is probably subletting it out as an HMO hence the internal doorlocks.

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5

They are definitely subletting, no doubt the unopened post will also list the various names. the fact that someone is getting post delivered is evidence of sub-letting, it’s not a case of one’s girlfriend staying a few days.
I’d go for immediate eviction!

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Thanks everyone for your comments.

About to generate the Section 21 notice using the Openrent tool. I have realised that although a valid EPC was uploaded to Openrent, it was not served to the tenant at the start of the tenancy. This as my oversight as I thought it was automatic from one tenancy to another, and it was not. I have served it to the tenant now.

Question - My understanding is that a valid EPC must exist before a tenancy started (which it did) and be served to a tenant before a Section 21 is served (which I have now done) - Have I got this right?

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7

Suggest you give notice (24 hours) that you will be doing an inspection. Whilst ideally you would always agree a time to inspect, you only have to give notice of the inspection. It will be up to them whether they attend or not

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8

I thought open rent carried forward long term documents like EPC and EICR from tenancy to next tenancy, then realised that they have to be uploaded to each new advert. This is something openrent could look into system wise, as I use the old advert, but it does not bring these docs with it.

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Thank you David.

Question - as I create the Sec 21 notice, I have a couple of quick clarifications.

Is it correct that a valid EPC must

  1. Exist before a tenancy started and
  2. Be served to a tenant before a Section 21 is served (not necessarily served before a tenancy started)

Thanks

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10

For the purposes of s21 then 1) no, 2) yes. There are lots of conditions you must meet for it to be valid. Google “nearly legal s21 flowchart” and check yours is ok.

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is there an issue in proving that a valid EPC was served if the LL cannot actually meet the tenant? Is it enough that it arrives at the property? Can the T claim that they did not receive it because they weren’t at the property when it was received? Will any of this invalidate or delay the S21 being served?

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Tenants will always say they didn’t receive a price if documentation or other even if they did.
All you can do is take reasonable steps to prove that they were available. i.e. are they available on a portal for them to download, where they informed if where documents are kept. Etc.
Whether they choose to look at them, or not is up to them.

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My understanding is that its not good enough to tell the tenant where they can download the document, it has to actually be served on the tenant. This means in some cases it can be emailed to them as an attachment, (not a link), but I always ask them to respond to the email to indicate that its received and readable and I also get them to wet sign a list of documents they’ve been served on the day they move-in.

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