First time on this platform so if I breach any rules, I apologise.
I am looking for advice. Long story short…
I am a landlord who had a property being managed by an estate agent, it was guaranteed rent. I decided to take the property back from the managing agent because we had problems with them. I tried to enter into a new tenancy with the tenant however she refused to sign. To this day, I have no formal tenancy with the tenant. I instructed solicitors to evict her. They applied to court and the claim was dismissed. The order was ‘upon the claimants not being the landlord or disclosing any right to bring this claim, claim is dismissed’.
My question is how do i prove that i am the landlord if the tenant is not willing to sign and enter into a new tenancy with me. The tenant is not cooperating and their engagement has been poor. Its been difficult to resolve issues hence the reason for court action.
You should have switched to another agent if you are not familiar with the legal and technical issues of managing a tenancy. As it was a guaranteed rent scheme, its likely that the agent had named themselves as landlord and rather than being your agent, they would have been your tenant. You would then have no legal relationship with the occupant and no right to serve them notice. When you removed the agent you would have needed to serve a s3/s48 notice to take over the landlord responsibilities. These sorts of rent to rent schemes are generally very bad for landlords and not recommended. A traditional agency relationship is usually advised.
You can serve the s3/s48 notice now and then serve a fresh eviction notice. However, if its a s21 notice, you should check that the other requirements of the notice have been complied with and that you have evidence of this otherwise that will fail at court too. Google “nearly legal s21 flowchart” to check.