My daughter is moving into a 9 bedroom student house and they all thought the furniture was included. The furniture is all pictured in the agents inventory. However the agent is removing all the sofas as I asked if they are compliant with fire regs (they are not) and he is not replacing them. The tenancy agreement does not state furnished or unfurnished and the agent says the furniture is not the Landlords but has been left by the tenants over the years. There is nothing in writing to say the furniture was not included so now they are moving into a 9 bedroom house at over £8,000 per month with no sofas. What is their legal right as tenants? The house was also filthy and moth infested with the agent insisting it had a £1000 professional clean and there has apparently now been a moth treatment. He will not provide evidence for the clean or moth treatment having been asked.
do you have evidence of the “filthy” state of the property and/or moth infestation. If so, you can add these to the inventory and I would suggest you take all that to the agent’s redress scheme. Ask the agent for the address of the scheme they belong to.
A judge is unlikely to be sympathetic to a LL who has removed sofas for communal seating for a property with 9 bedrooms.
Yes I have lots of evidence. The communal sofas are apparently being replaced but not the sofas and armchairs in some of the bedrooms which is a great disappointment to the students moving in so I wondered whether they have any rights to insist on replacement sofas and arm chairs. This seems a typical example of an agent poorly managing a house and assuming students won’t care and don’t know their rights. The inventory is not a professional inventory and the agent said the furniture in the pictures is irrelevant and the pictures are to show the general condition. The pictures taken also were not how the property was when I first visited but as I said I have lots of evidence myself. I think I need legal advice on whether the tenants have any rights to expect the bedroom furniture to be replaced.
They probably have rights under consumer legislation as the advert and viewings showed furniture and there was no verbal or written statement to the contrary. You may need to see a solicitor to enforce this, but if the landlord still disagrees, the tenants would probably have the right to unwind the tenancy and get a full refund. That, of course, may not be very helpful if there is no alternative accommodation available to them at short notice.
Incidently, fabric moths are very hard to fully eradicate and the eggs are usually transported to other properties on clothes. All the parents would be likely to get them in their properties when the students come home for breaks.
Well it’s good from a safety pov that sofas which arent fire rated (presumably old left by former tenants) have been removed, and that the moth treatment has been done.
Its fair to expect some seating to be provided if some was shown in the adverts - but youve not said that was the case ’ and it was advertised as furnished
If the sofas were only shown in an agents move out inventory (produced for when former tenants move d out?) that was shared, that’s not necessarily any promise of what facilities the new tenants would get unless presented as such.
If the place is filthy - well the new tenants should have raised whether a pre clean tenancy would be done before move in - if they didnt its caveat emptir, and a professional move in inventory should reflect the state of the cleaning anyway. If recorded as v dirty, It means if they manage to clean to same level when they move out then they shouldnt have any deposit reductions for cleaning. If cleanliness not recorded or shown at all by photos the deposit schemes also wont allow landlord claims for cleaning. So there is a silver lining. Plus the students get to start their tenancy with a nice big clean to do instead of any Gen Z entitlement, and learn not to ‘assume’ everything would be done for them.
Good luck
Do you have the original advert . Was it advertised as furnished or unfurnished?
It is irrelevant that the inventory was professional or not.
What is relevant is :-
1.Was the furniture present on the pictures ?
2.Is there any mention that the furniture that was removed was gifted ?
3.If it was not documented as gifted then the landlord is liable to replace what’s on the inventory as it’s their responsibility.
Gifted means just that . The Landlord takes no responsibility as they are gifting the item to the tenant.
If a gifted item is damaged then the tenant is liable for disposal and replacement .
If the tenant was liable the tenant should have removed it .
The fact that the estate agent removed the furniture implies their ( that is the landlord’s ) liability for the furniture .
It seems a shame to throw away the furniture because there was no label . A lot of my labels have fallen off but I know they are fire safe because they were when I purchased the furniture . Also the year of manufacturing / purchase will indicate it .
Not true! Tenants do leave stuff behind and LL can store and (after enough time and notices) dispose of it. See all the threads on ‘abandoned property’.
Otherwise tenants could leave their stuff behind indefinitely in a LL’s property
Best
Yes but the tenancy started and it’s included on the inventory pictures. Therefore technically it’s inventory ( unless it’s stated otherwise ) .
What you are saying would not fly in court . It just sounds like an excuse to get out of inventory responsibility .
If the property did belong to the previous tenant it has to be stored with care. If the new tenant damaged old tenants property the landlord would be liable.
If it is indeed possessions then they should be treated as such.
We simply dont know if this furniture was part of a move in inventory for new tenants or only a previous tenant’s move out inventory or whether the furniture was even in the property when the tenancy started. It sounds like it may not have been and the tenants were surprised. Agent showing the tenants an old inventory could simply have been to show the sort of detail that a new inventory would provide. Not any promise of what would be included in future. We just don’t know.
Unless part of advertised provision of furniture it’s perfectly reasonable for LL to store previous tenants property elsewhere and after the right notices, dispose of.
As you say, LL has to deal with old tenants’ possessions properly but that doesn’t stop them removing it from the property and storing. It doesn’t imply any liability to provide new equivalent (fire safe) furniture for the new tenants
Best
The property was never advertised. The agent says he verbally told them that all furniture was not included and did not belong to the LL but none of the new tenants can recall any conversations about furniture and there is nothing about the furniture in any correspondence from the agent in writing except the inventory where all the furniture is in the pictures. The tenancy agreement does not state furnished or unfurnished but does mention furniture all needing to be cleared at the end of each tenancy. Its very difficult to ascertain whether the LL is responsible for replacing the sofas and armchairs he has removed in the bedrooms. The agent says the communal sofas are being replaced. What timescale is reasonable for this to happen as there will be 9 of them with nowhere to sit? They are about to pay the second instalment of rent which as mentioned before is over £8000pcm. This feels like its the case of an agent thinking students don’t care and its unlucky for him that I visited the property before any of them moved in to see how it really is which I have a lot of photos and videos so there will be no ‘professional clean’ when they move out.
Is the furniture recorded in the written inventory? If not and there was no advert, the tenants may struggle to get any redress as it would be a he said, she said situation. In this case, I think they should just negotiate hard, especially given the rent level.
Your own photos taken before they moved in arent part of any official inventory and don t count for anything. Nor does a previous moving out inventory produced for previous tenants. Hard to prove agent lying their word vs the agent. The tenancy agreement saying all furniture to be cleared at end of tenancy should have prompted the students to ask about the furniture they’d seen at viewing and whether it was owned by previous tenants and due to be removed. So they had two opportunities to ask, both at the viewing and then when reading the draft tenancy agreement before signing.
Sounds like there was no signed moving in inventory either for current tenancy, and no promises the bedroom furniture would be included.
As @David122 implies, the students need to be more careful in future in sorting out what is or isnt included when they sign a deal instead of just ‘assuming’. This ‘feels like’ naive students lazily not reading a draft contract and complaining after the event when the fault is their own for not checking what is included either at the viewing or when reviewing the contract. I’m not sure the amount they are paying is terribly relevant I’d expect people paying a higher amount to be just as diligent as those paying less.
Ps id think it’s reasonable to expect seating facilities in the communal area to be replaced within a week or for there to be a rent reduction for the period they arent available if longer.
Best
If the tenancy agreement says that the furniture is to be removed by the tenants when they move out then it’s pretty obvious that it is being let as unfurnished. The landlord doesn’t have to provide any furniture at all.
You made your own (sorry, your daughter’s and her friends’) bed and now they’ll have to sleep in it.
It all sounds a bit “Karen” to me. And guess what those furniture-less students are going to do now? Right! They’ll open FB Marketplace and pick up the cheapest sofas/settees they can find, maybe even the free ones. Last thing most of them are going to check is their fire rating.
I just hope that your further endeavour to protect their rights won’t leave them homeless.
In contract law ambiguity favours the lesser party. In this case it would favour the tenant .
There is clear ambiguity and contradiction.
Images on inventory imply responsibility of the LL.
if it is that the property was unfurnished then the LL provided endure that he didn’t give out a thumb turn ready property in line with his own contract .
You are right to keep images of move in. They will be useful if it goes to adjudication at the end of tenancy.
You will need to provide image data
That is date and time of images ( up to seven days of move in will be acceptable but best to do it the day you move in