I have a 6 bedroom licensable HMO house share of which i have presently 4 bedrooms currently rented out on normal 12month AST I’m using the NLA version (AST) and i presently have 1 disgruntled tenant whom keeps attempting to gain full control of both the other tenants and the whole building.
For instance, the said tenant is trying to force me provide access Notice of at least 24hrs notice any and overtime i go to the building (which is seldom) however i keep explaining that as i only rent out the actual bedroom then this Notice of Access is only applicable to the said Bedroom rather than the whole building as all other areas are shared by others on separate AST’s.
Legally I’m i correct that i as the Landlord/Management and owner can go whenever i like to any communal area in the building which is shared/communal areas without needing to provide any Notice to a tenant unless i obviously need to access their actual rented bedroom of which i would be required to provide an Access Notice request as per the AST.
Hi Andrew,
While we aren’t legally trained here our understanding is that you are right that you don’t legally need to give 24 hours’ notice if you are only accessing the shared areas of an HMO.
Our experience has shown that these situations are normally best resolved by talking with the tenant to come to a compromise, such as agreeing to give two or three hours’ notice instead.
I hope that this is helpful and if any other landlords have experienced similar situations we would love to hear about how you managed to come to an arrangement with your tenant(s).
Kind regards,
Beth and the OpenRent team.
Thanks for that Beth, the issue is more so that having the luxury of pre-advance warning enough to then be able to pass that on to many different tenants in advance is near impossible on most occasions such as when i cut the grass i usually don’t make any plans until the morning i wake and check the weather and my other priority commitments etc so that can be spontaneous and when passing by i may stop off and check meter readings and the grass and do a walk around whilst their for instance or maybe i just need to grab something from my own office/store room which i have there or sometimes need a spontaneous viewing as i have empty rooms etc etc and further more i have noticed that the people in question who are annoying me the most about wanting any advance notice are the very people who are breaching the AST by drying their cloths indoors in the kitchen even at 27deg c outside and leaving their belongings in communal areas such as all their shoes in-front of fire doors, jamming fire doors open, cloths racks all over etc etc hence they want the said prior notice warning so that they can ensure their stuff is not there for when i go yet this defeats the object of the exercise of all rules and regulations in the real world so this make me feel even more so that i need to not give notice just on this point alone hence needing to do spontaneous spot inspections so it feels a very strange predicament i find myself in yet i further feel it brought on due to my overly open and kindness being misinterpreted with weakness and simply the tenant in question is clearly trying to take control of the communal areas as well as their own bedroom.
No one can control the communal area it does not belong to the tenants .They can pass over it ti get to their rooms.The landlord does not have to give notice to check it or walk thru it
i know but unfortunately this AST tenant does not accept nor agree that is the situation at all, rather the complete opposite even after months of emails to and from about it, the tenant has perceived what that wanted to and now believes the craziness too and refuses anything i state surrounding such, its madness but reality for me.
This tenant further ignorantly claims that citizen advise told confirmed that i am not permitted to enter the property without the said Notice yet i still obviously have not received any such letter substantiating this stupidity.
I use NLA AST.