Category Archives: Analysis

Violent landlords

In society there are always a few people who do not respect societies values or the law, and who will use violence to enforce their will. Unfortunately quite a few of these people are landlords. These are the landlords who rent out substandard properties which they expect their tenants to live in without complaint and…

Why do homelessness units tell tenants to wait for a possession order?

There is another way ...

Another post from our popular regular guest blogger Ben Reeve Lewis The problem about re-housing and homelessness I was posting elsewhere on this site in answer to a query about homelessness duties and I was mindful of the number of times I hear the genuine exasperation of landlords with nightmare tenants, or those in massive…

Can you have more than four tenants on one tenancy agreement?

You don

I was asked this recently by a regular reader, who had heard that only four people can legally own a tenancy. What, he asked, happens with all those tenancy agreements where there are five or more tenants listed?  Are the extra people not really tenants then?  What about claiming rent off them? Joint ownership of…

Tenants – if your agent lets you down, can you bring a claim against him?

Has the agent authority to let this property?

When there are problems in a rented property, the general rule is that it is the landlord who is liable for this, and not the agent. The agent is the middle man, facilitating the agreement between the landlord and the tenant, and getting paid for this. He is not personally liable. Or is he? In…

Eviction – why changing the law won’t help landlords

Houses

Eviction law and landlords Although many people still tend to speak of landlords and Rackman in the same breath, in fact this is often very far from the truth.  Most landlords are law abiding and care deeply about their properties and their tenants. This is why it can be so devastating when they have a…

Landlord and tenant law – implied surrender explained

Houses

Implied surrender/ surrender by operation of law – what is it? Implied surrender (which I mentioned also here) is a useful rule in landlord and tenant law. In most cases if a tenant fails to give up possession of a property, the landlord has to get a court order before he can re-take the property…

Why does housing law have to be so complicated?

Why is housing law so complex?

“And why” some people say “When you ask a lawyer a question, why do they never answer it properly?  The best they can often say is ‘it depends’.  What kind of an answer is that?” The trouble is that law IS complicated.  Why?  Because we are complicated.  We live such complicated lives, that our laws…