Ben Reeve-Lewis mentioned in this post here, the necessity for the landlord to disclose his address when requested, under s1 Landlord & Tenant Act 1985, and of course it was one of my tips in this post here.
However, what address must the landlord give? The section says
a written statement of the landlord’s name and address
Looking further down the act though, the definitions sections are at the end. Section 38 helpfully says
“address” means a person’s place of abode or place of business or, in the case of a company, its registered office;
So if you are a landlord and you don’t want irate tenants coming round shouting at your and scaring your children (its not only tenants who get harassed), make sure you have a place of business somewhere and always give that address.
So far as section 48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 is concerned, I cannot see that the act provides a definition of ‘address’ but it has always been understood that the letting agents address can be the address given, or perhaps that of a friend or relative – for example if you do not live in England and Wales.
I was prompted to look into the question of disclosure of the landlords address, after seeing a report in the Legal Action Magazine on the case of O’Brian v. Jones (Northampton County Court, 12 February 2010).
This case is a tenancy deposit case. The landlord protected the deposit with TDS who sent a certificate to the tenant. However it had the agents address not the landlords. The tenant claimed that the landlord was in breach of the regulations which say
(g) the following information in connection with the tenancy in respect of which the deposit has been paid—
…
(iii) the name, address, telephone number, and any e-mail address or fax number of the landlord;
However the Judge disagreed. Although the landlord had served the information before the hearing, so the point was not in issue, the Judge is reported as saying that he did not interpret the regulations as requiring the giving of the landlords residential address.
Personally my view is that if a landlord has a business address, that should be sufficient disclosure for any purpose, and he should not be forced to provide his home address. What do you think?
If I were a landlord, I would probably hesitate about providing tenants with my home address but if you go into this business and cannot provide another address where you can be contacted then your home address it is.
Having said that, it would be also be helpful if letting agents did their jobs properly.
In my own block of flats, the performance of most of the letting agents has been absolutely abysmal, leaving tenants nowhere to turn if they do not have their landlord’s contact details.
Whilst I am more than able to provide advice on what tenants need to do in such an event, this is not really the point and this is yet another example where the visibility of landlord’s is key from the outset.
Kind Regards
Miss Sharon Crossland AIRPM
Leasehold Life
My view is that if a Landlord lets out premises, he is perfectly entitled to say that he is doing so as a business (however small that business may be). He can then say that his address for the purpose of that business is the Agent’s address