Unfortunately you will lose in court , you are not allowed to have two different tenants pay rent for the same property
I would give her money back as you will lose .
Irrespective of what she agreed with you she most likely had legal possession of the property
If that’s what she said you are on a very sticky wicket, I will move out before is not a legal surrender and if it was you can’t take double rent
If this was me scheming to charge tenants twice it would have been very wrong. However, the two weeks overpayment wasn’t deemed rent when offered, but a compensatory gesture - at least that’s how she presented it together with offering to pay the estate agent.
But what you’ve said here contradicts what she wrote.
She didn’t state it was a “gift”, but I don’t see why you’d make a voluntary overpayment for something you don’t intend to use. I certainly didn’t ask her to. She also didn’t intend to come back and use the room. So if someone voluntarily paid a car rental until the end of the month as an act of apology, knowing that they would only need it for a week, and return it to you after the week - is it yours to use as you please for the next 3 weeks? Were the extra 3 weeks rent or a gift?
The only bit of her writing you’ve quoted makes it explicit that it was a rent payment. She made it because she was contracturally obliged to cover the rent on a monthly basis. You then found someone to cover the expected shortfall so the original payment should be returned to her.
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Thank you for your input.
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She didnt make an overpayment. With a monthly contract, the rent comes in one month batches and there are no refunds if some of it is not used, provided the property remains empty, which in this case it hasnt.
Thank you, I didn’t even know that this wasn’t an overpayment, but rent as such. What I’m not sure about is whether the person still has any claim to any object rented once they’ve abandoned it or resigned its use half way. If she had kept her key and waited with the deposit request there wouldn’t have been any doubt. But she left her old room to me to manage, demanding her deposit back and leaving the property for good.
I am unsure as Citizens advice, an estate agency and my friends are very clear that the law is on my side, but the advice I’m getting on this forum seems very different. I think I’d really need a solicitor to clarify my position. Thanks everyone.
Hi Malina, I think that I see where the misunderstanding was. The tenant likely paid you the full month even if she was moving out earlier because she didn’t think you’d find anyone so soon but then when she realised you found someone then she felt entitled to have her money back. I don’t think it’s as clear to me that you should be returning the money. If I were in your shoes, I would also be considering not returning it but I would’ve been very clear with her before she moved out that you are keeping the 2 weeks rent as compensation for the hassle of having to find another tenant so soon. Although you were lucky to find another tenant quickly, this couldn’t have been the case and you could’ve easily quantified the cost of your time advertising and conducting viewings, checkout inspection, inventory, etc, apart from the stress you had to endure. However, in the eye of the law they may just see this as double payment because there was no clear agreement between you and the tenant about what happens to this extra payment. I think that you should take this as a learning curve that you need to be clear at every step and document whatever the tenant tells you, and cover your back by having contracts in place. Good luck and hope any future sublets would go smoother
Thank you, Joseph1 - this summarises my position really well. I’m very tired of dealing with and finding lodgers, which is exactly why I paid the estate agent to find someone stable and long term. So her moving out almost straight away led to a major decision for me to give up the tenancy for the house (I’m the main tenant subletting with owner’s agreement) and move out. So whilst one could see this as a matter of two weeks rent, for me a lack of transparency and impulsive decision making by this lady has far reaching consequences. I am currently in a flexible notice period with the house owner myself and both of my current lodgers are aware of the situation.
Also, the level of aggression this lady has unleashed all of a sudden is very close to bullying and intimidation, which I have an aversion to. She has tainted my name with the second lodger and I had to clarify the situation eith him to clear my name (she forgot to mention to him that she had planned to pay until end of April all along even though knew that would move out sooner and forgot to mention she collected her deposit. Also she now says she returned her key “for safekeeping”). When finding out that a new person moved in she has sent me a barrage of volatile messages calling my action illegal, saying I’m conducting fraud and threatening to report me as committing a crime to my professional association, so threatening to smear my name as a professional. She threatened to file a lawsuit with the solicitor the very next day. I had to ask her to stop messaging because of the impact this pressure was having. on me. When I showed her messages to my friends there was a general response of shock due to how volatile they were.
So I guess this isn’t jjust about £300, but about taking accountability for impulsive decisions that negatively affect others and also about whether bullying your way into retrieving something you gave away as a token of apology is acceptable.
I agree that the behaviour you describe is unacceptable, but had you immediately returned the money she was due back, you would not have faced any of that intimidation. The letter of hers you quoted makes it clear that she gave it as rent for the property and it’s hardly surprising that she was upset when she discovered that you were unwilling to return it when you had suffered no financial loss from her actions.
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She has no right to her money back, weather or not you got a replacement lodger is no concern of hers. If she wants to take you to court let her, if you loose you will have to pay her what the court decides which wont be any more than she is claiming.
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What about good will, and manners? She had a verbal contract with you, then pulled out, you gave her the deposit bsck quickly and you both moved on. I would say that it was pure luck that you got someone in straight away, none of the former tenant’s doing. What about your time and steess, sorting all this out!
I’m a would be tenant myself, not a landlord but I don’t see that she has much of a leg to stand on really !
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You should have asked for a fixed term tenancy with extension. But most likely your own tenancy contract doesn’t allow subletting, so what you’re doing is shady anyway.
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Ivan12, I didn’t ask for a fixed term with extension because the lady was presented to me by a reputable estate agent as trustworthy and because she made it very clear that she is staying long term to me and the estate agent. There is something to be said about honouring your word too here.
As for my own conduct being “shady” - I find this assumption unnecessary and unsettling. My rental agreement specifies, in writing, that I sublet to two lodgers, with explicit consent from the owner. The owner is not interested in how much I rent the rooms out for as long as I pay the rent for the entire house as agreed. There is nothing shady in how I sublet and that is not how I operare. Please refrain from voicing negative assumptions about people you don’t know.
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Hello. I am not a lawyer or legal adviser, but can offer my view, in light of my long time experience in letting. The leaving tenant broke the tenancy agreement, and you accepted it. She offered as compensation to pay for the remainder of April. There was no agreement between you and her that you would have to refund her if you find a tenant for April. You took a risk, and were paid for the risk. I don’t see any ground on which the leaving tenant can demand and expect you to pay back, as it was your effort and luck, which she dumped on you to sort out. If I were in this situation, I would not return the payment to the leaving tenant. She should not have her bread buttered on both sides.
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Just an addition: the leaving tenant may not broken a fixed term agreement here. She gave notice of a month, and left earlier on her own accord. Even in this case I do not see that she has the right to demand a refund because you found a tenant earlier. There was no such agreement between you about this.
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Re-letting the property means one of two things:
-
That the landlord wishes the original tenancy to end automatically on the day the new tenant moves in since you cant have 2 simultaneous tenancies running on the same space. In this case a refund is due from that date.
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The landlord has illegally evicted the original tenant by re-letting the space and can be sued by them and potentially prosecuted by the local authority and banned from being a landlord.
I know which one I’d choose.
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Malina, I think some of the first advice you received here was unfair to you.
You were paid for April because of the inconvenience of finding another tenant at short notice so soon into a tenancy. If it had taken 6 weeks to do so, say, you would not have expected the former tenant to compensate you further.
Your rental agreement ended when she notified you then surrendered the keys. The property is yours to let again. You are now responsible for rates and bills until it is relet.
If you didn’t have a written agreement covering this sort of thing, you really should have one for your new tenant stating minimum term, and notice periods inside and outside of that minimum term. This would usually be 6 months, in which case the tenant would be liable for all 6 months rent even if they move out after 2 (although I would usually agree a shorter period with them if they had otherwise acted well)
It sounds like the tenant talked to a bar-room lawyer, and went in unnecessarily aggressively. Although I think you are in the right, and have acted correctly. I would consider them more trouble than it was worth and pay the balance for your own peace of mind.
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