Getting rid of subtenants? Mesne tenant has abandoned building

Landlord Discussion Legal
1

Hello all, looking for some advice

Long standing tenant in our property. He was given permission to rent one room to a single adult.

Turns out he was renting to multiple adults (two families with five children) in breach of consent and HMO.

We asked him to leave and he agreed but now the tenants have refused to leave. He has not been living in the property for a few months. He continued to pay rent for a few months while he negotiated with them to leave but has now stopped paying us rent and is non contactable.

  1. According to shelter if the mesne tenant “surrenders” their tenancy these sub tenants become ours? Is that really how it works? We didnt even know they were all still living there? What would the technical definition of surrender be here?

  2. Is it a matter of a S21 towards the mesne tenant and eventually Bailiffs to remove everyone

  3. Are we allowed to increase his rent via a S12 or would this make out situation worse and imply we were ok with the current situation

  4. Would this still be an unlawful subletting as we never consented to subletting the whole property let alone more than one room/one person.

  5. Is it worthwhile using a S8 instead or would it be slower risking it being delayed by the judge.

  6. The subtenants seem to have got our bank details and have tried to transfer the money. We have no way of sending it back? what do we do? We have multiple messages telling them to pay their landlord (mesne tenant). Do we need to do anything specific here?

  7. The mesne landlord has also told the subtenants that he has transferred his deposit to us. We assumed this was rent. Do we need to protect this?

Thanks!

2

I think Shelter is correct. Where a tenant has consent to sublet, the sub-tenants become direct tenants of the superior landlord if you agree to end the tenancy of the mesne tenant. I understand that you only gave consent for a lodger/licensee, and a single person, but I 'm not sure this would change the situation. You should check that with a housing solicitor in case there is a loophole.

I am not sure that the sub-tenants inherit the terms of your tenancy either, so it may be that they have an undocumented tenancy. They are also entitled to withhold rent until they have been formally notified of a change of landlord through a s3/s48 notice.

You should take legal advice from a specialist as a matter of urgency, (not a high street lawyer) before acting, but my assumption is that you will have to either accept them as tenants, (presumably a family so no longer an HMO situation), or evict them in the normal way. If you use s21 then I don’t think the accelerated option will be available to you.

3

letting anyone sublet is a big mistake . never do it

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