Most tenancy agreements forbid this, and so if you are a tenant you will need to get your landlords permission first. In most cases your landlord will be only too happy to say yes, if it means he will get his rent paid promptly and on time.

However remember that if the property is an HMO he may have no alternative but to say no, if the lodger would bring the number of occupants of the property above the number permitted in his license.

The landlord may also want to exercise some control over who the tenant is, to make sure that no-one unsuitable is living in his property. Practically there is not much he can do if you take in a lodger who is not to his liking – other than serve a section 21 notice on you and require you to vacate! So it is probably best to co-operate with him.

However YOU will be the person having a share a house or flat with the lodger, so you should be the person who has the last word on the matter.

There are lots of ways of finding a lodger – postcards in shop windows are a very traditional way, but many people are now using the internet with sites such as www.spareroom.co.uk and www.mondaytofriday.com. However it is important that you take great care in your choice as the lodger will have access to all your personal possessions – so you need to be sure that he is trustworthy.

Often people taking in lodgers tend to skimp referencing and credit checks, but they are arguable more important for a lodger in your own home than they are for landlords taking in tenants. So make sure you do this – my Your Law Store site has a new lodger pack which will help here. It also has a lodger agreement which you can use – another essential which lodger landlords often ignore.

Taking in a lodger can be good personally as well as financially. Sometimes lodgers stay a long time and can become an important part of the household. However it is best not to be too friendly at first. The relationship is after all a business one, and if you get too pally some people may take advantage of this.

There is a whole lot more about lodgers on my special website Lodger Landlord so if you decide to take in a lodger this is a good place to find out more.

Julie’s inheritance

Last year, Julie inherited a nice little property in Manchester from her great aunt Mary.

She didn’t want to sell it as she had fond memories of staying there as a child. She already had a nice house and a good job in Sheffield, and didn’t want to move, so she decided to rent it out to get a bit of extra income. Julie was a single Mum, so the extra money would be very welcome.

She decided to deal with the letting herself to save money. It seemed quite easy from what she had read about it on the Internet. She found some nice tenants, and used a standard tenancy agreement published by a reputable company, which she found in her local stationers.

The tenants wanted a 12 month term, but she was a bit worried about renting for that length of time to strangers so she added an extra clause saying that the landlord had the option to end the tenancy on a months notice.

The problems start

A few weeks after the tenants had moved in, Julie was told at work that her position was being made redundant, but that if she was prepared to re-locate, she could have a similar job in their Manchester office. This was no problem she told the company, she had a property there she could move in to, but would need a few months to get the tenants out. It was agreed that she would move up there in six months time.

Julie therefore served notice on her tenants, asking them to vacate early under the break clause she had added to the tenancy agreement, and for good measure served a section 21 notice as well. The tenants told her that they were not in a position to move elsewhere unless they were re-housed by the Local Authority and had been told to stay in the property until they were evicted.

Proceedings for possession

At the end of the two months therefore Julie went along to the local court, and issued proceedings for possession. She was a bit surprised when the tenants served a defence saying that they had the right to stay in the property as their tenancy had not ended yet, but assumed that they were just ‘trying it on’.

Julie was devastated therefore to find at the court hearing, that the Judge agreed with them. The notice to end the tenancy, he told her, was invalid, as the break clause in her tenancy agreement only allowed the landlord to end the tenancy, and not the tenants. For the clause to be ‘enforceable’ it had to be even handed and give the same rights to both landlord and tenants.

When Julie protested that she was not running a business and so how could these rules apply to her, the Judge said that renting out property was a business occupation, that it would be unfair to treat tenants of different landlords differently, and that so far as he was concerned, the regulations applied.

So the tenants defence was correct, their fixed term had not ended yet,. They had another three months still to go.

An expensive mistake

Not only did Julie lost the case, but as the tenants had been represented by a solicitor at court under the legal aid scheme, she was ordered to pay all their legal costs! Which turned out to be surprisingly expensive.

Julie managed to get the tenants out in the end. She served another section 21 notice for the end of the 12 month term, and this time there were no problems.

However the whole exercise cost her a lot of money, particularly as the tenants stopped paying their rent and had run up a massive rent arrears bill before they left. Plus she had to move up to Manchester before the tenants had gone and so had to rent another property short term, which was also rather expensive. Along with two lots of removal expenses and the cost of storing her furniture for six months.

In fact Julie was forced to sell her Sheffield property to cover her expenses, rather than rent it out as she had planned. “If only” she said “I had known more about tenancy agreements, this would never have happened”.

Don’t let it happen to you

Listen to parts 16 and 17 of my tenancy agreements audiobook and you will find out all about the unfair contract terms regulations that tripped Julie up (although break clauses themselves are covered in a later part, part 25). You can download parts 16 and 17  free of charge if you sign up to the Your Law Store mailing list (if you are already signed up you should have been emailed a download link).

You will also get notified of other products and services we think you may be interested in. You can unsubscribe at any time (and we won’t give your details away to any third parties). So why not give it a go? >> Click here.

An interesting subject and topical as many families, at least 100 it is estimated, will have lost their homes in the riots last week.

So if you have been made homeless as a result of civil disorder, what should you do?

1. See what government help is available

If you have lost your home during a high profile riots it is likely that there will be government support and help available. The best place to find out about this is probably via your Local Authority homelessness department.

Accordingly to a very helpful article in the Guardian, government has pledged support in addition to support already available to Local Authorities via a scheme called The Bellwin Scheme.

The Bellwin scheme is described as follows:

A Bellwin scheme may be activated in any case where an emergency or disaster involving destruction of or danger to life or property occurs and, as a result, one or more local authorities incur expenditure on, or in connection with, the taking of immediate action to safeguard life or property, or to prevent suffering or severe inconvenience, in their area or among its inhabitants.

There is no automatic entitlement to financial assistance: Ministers are empowered by Section 155 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 to decide whether or not to activate a scheme after considering the circumstances of each individual case.

Government disaster support schemes should always be your first port of call, as they will be specifically set up for your situation and hopefully help will be made available promptly.  As government will want to be seen to be doing something.

2. Request help from your Local Authority homlessness department

As well as the emergency specific schemes discussed above, Local authorities also have a statutory duty to rehouse tenants made homeless who are considered to be in ‘priority need’. There are several types of ‘priority need’ specified and rehousing is most commonly requested where the tenant has a young family or is pregnant, or is vulnerable through old age or disability.

However, there is also an ‘emergency’ category. This refers specifically to fire and flood and ‘other disaster’, and it seems that this other disaster must be some form of physical damage or threat of damage.

However if your home has been burned out as a result of looters setting it on fire, no doubt this would qualify. So you should be entitled to emergency re-housing.

Statutory guidance is available to Local Authorities in the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities where you will find the various rules set out.

People are also considered to be in priority need if they have been made homeless due to violence, or threats of violence which are likely to be carried out. This is less likley to apply to the problems we have had over the past week however and are aimed more at violent partners and long term threats carried out over a period of time.

3. Take a look at your tenancy agreement

Assuming it is not burnt of course! Often though, tenancy agreements will provide for the tenancy to end if the property is destroyed. There is also a rule in the law of contract which provides for contracts to be ‘discharged by frustration‘. For example if it impossible to continue with the contract as the subject matter has been destroyed.

However if the property is not completely destroyed but is just badly damaged, you may find that the situation is covered by your landlord’s insurance and that the insurers will be able to cover the cost of re-housing while repair work is being done.

Those are three sources of help that I have found. Are there any I have missed?

Croydon riots picture by Peter G Trimming

There are two questions here – mail addressed to the landlord sent to the property while the tenant is in occupation, and mail arriving for tenants after they have vacated.

Landlords mail

If there is any chance that your mail will be sent to the rented property, I would strongly advise all landlords to arrange for a postal re-direct so that their post never gets into the hands of their tenants.  If only to avoid the possibility of identity theft, if you have been unlucky enough to have a dishonest tenant.

If you think mail arriving for you at the property is a pretty remote possibility, then maybe a postal re-direct is a bit excessive.  However make sure that any organisation which IS likely to write there, is given your proper address (for example the Land Registry – see this scam here).

If you are the tenant and are not sure what to do with mail that arrives for your landlord, tell them about it and ask what they want done with it.  Then either forward it or hold it for them to collect as they ask.

Tenants mail

Tenants too are strongly advised to arrange for a postal re-direct when they leave a rented property.  As this will only be for a limited time though, make sure you give your landlord a forwarding address.

However as it will generally not be your landlord himself who received your mail but the next tenants, it is best to make a concerted effort to ensure that everyone who is likely to write to you at that address is told of your new one.

Generally

You should NOT open someone else’s mail.   If you know where they are then write ‘Forward to’ and then the address on the envelope and re-post it.

If you do not know their address, then post it back marked ‘Not known at this address’ or ‘gone away’ and leave the postal authorities to deal with it.

You may also want to consider doing this if you get fed up with being used as an unpaid postal forwarding service.  If post is returned to the sender they will be made aware that the person they are writing to is no longer at that address and will (hopefully) stop writing to them there.

Postbox picture by Sarah G

Or get asked by landlords whether they can change their minds, for example becuase there is a prospect of a new tenant at a higher rant.

My answer is generally no, the landlord cannot get out of it. If he has sent a new tenancy agreement to the tenant to sign, and then tenant signs it, there is nothing he can do about it. He is bound by the new tenancy fixed term.

Contract law

Lets have a look at the law behind this. In my foundations article on contract, I said that there are three parts to a contract -

• offer,
• acceptance and
• consideration.

The offer will be the landlord sending out the new tenancy agreement to the tenant, the acceptance will be the tenant signing it. As there will always be consideration (the payment of rent and the provision of the property) that will be a binding contract.

Signed tenancy agreement forms are not always required

Generally you can create a tenancy where the term is under three years without a proper deed, indeed it is possible to create a completely oral tenancy. This is set out in section s54 of the Law of Property Act 1925.  So the fact that the landlord may not have signed the tenancy agreement sent out will not mean he can get out of it after the tenant has signed it and sent it back.

However if the requirements of s54 are not fully complied with so that a tenancy deed is required to create the new fixed term – I still don’t think the landlord can get out of the new tenancy using his non signature as a reason.  Because of equity (which I looked at in my foundations series).

Equity again

One of the equitable maxims is that “Equity looks on that as done which ought to be done”.

In our scenario the landlord certainly ought to sign the tenancy agreement if the tenant has signed it in good faith. So if he does not (unless there has been some kind of hanky panky on the part of the tenant which would mean he would not have ‘clean hands’) then equity will step in and not allow him to, for example, evict the tenant under a previously served section 21 notice.

Or at least I would hope it would. What does anyone else think?

Advice to landlords sending tenancy agreement forms out by post

I would also strongly advise landlords who send tenancy agreements out to tenants in the post for signature and return, to be very specific in the covering letter as to what the tenant needs to do to get the new fixed term.  Particularly if they have already signed the form themselves.

In particular I would suggest they give the tenant a time limit by when the signed agreement must be returned and say if it is not received by then, the renewal will not be effective.  Otherwise they may possibly find themselves bound by a signed tenancy form they have not got back yet.