Here is a question to the blog clinic from Laura who is a tenant
Please help, my landlord will not let me “leave” the house I am not living in.
I have moved out because I have a new job several miles away. I shared the house with three other people, we all signed the same 12 month contract which has now overrun into a rolling month by month contract (sorry I don’t know the correct term).
I gave the landlord notice as per our contract but he told me that unless everyone gave notice I would have to find someone else to take my place.
I found someone but he could not move in because he needed a guarantor, my former housemates then found someone else who physically moved in for a month did not pay any rent and moved out again without signing any contract when he found out that the landlord wanted to reference her. As I am typing my old room is still empty.
My former housemates have told me that the landlord is chasing them for my share of the rent and they are putting pressure on me to pay, which I cannot afford because I am paying rent for another place. Apparently I am still named as a tenant as well.
I have also been told that I am not entitled to my share of the deposit because it was paid by all of us and not individually (we paid an equal share).
The landlord has made no effort to find another person for the spare room, and it doesn’t seem right that it is down to me to find a replacement tenant when I am living several miles away.
How can I get myself out of this situation?
If the fixed term of the tenancy has ended and you are in a periodic tenancy (the ‘proper’ name for a rolling tenancy), then the answer is quite easy.
You should serve a tenants’ notice to quit. This does not need to be in any specific format , but should give your landlord formal notice to end the tenancy. The notice period should be at least one ‘period’ of the tenancy (i.e. if it is a monthly periodic tenancy you need to give at least one months notice) and the notice period you give should end at the end of the period.
So if your tenancy runs from the 3rd day of the month to the 2nd, you give notice to the next 2nd day of the month after one month after you serve the notice on your landlord. Which will be any time between one and two months, depending when in the month you serve it.
Under the common law, one of joint tenants can end a tenancy by a tenants notice to quit if the tenancy is a periodic one. So the effect of your notice will be to end the tenancy for everyone at the end of your notice period.
If the other tenants stay on then a new tenancy will be created between them and the landlord, but the tenancy which YOU were a part of will have ended. You cannot therefore be liable for any more rent after your notice has expired. (Note that it is less easy to end your tenancy if your fixed term has not ended yet).
You should also be able to claim your deposit back as the tenancy will have ended – do any readers have any suggestions on the best way to do this?
She does mention that she gave notice already, but doesn’t say when. But if she gave this after the periodic tenancy started then it sounds rather like another landlord has made no effort to understand the law, and is happily just ignoring all his responsibilities.
I thought the person that gives notice would be liable (along with all other tenets) for all the landlords’ costs (including any unpaid rent, maybe even double rent) if the other people don’t move out?
E.g there is just one tenant that is made up of many people.
The tenancy will end on the service of the notice to quit (assuming it is served during a periodic tenancy). However if some of the tenants stay on and pay rent which is accepted by the landlord then, so far as I am aware, a new tenancy will be created – s54(2)LPA. But the outgoing tenant will not be a part of it.
I thought for a tenancy to end the tenant must surrender the property back to the landlord on the day the notice ends. Unless I have misunderstood it the tenancy in this case is for the complete property, so the complete property must be empty for the tenancy to end.
As it is a joint tenancy, the ‘tenant’ is one, so must all move out for the tenancy to end.
I know it is a bit weird, but it is accepted law that one of joint tenants can end a tenancy by serving a notice to quit – even if the other tenants are unaware of this.
It is used often by social landlords who, when rehousing battered wives, will ask them to serve a notice to quit allowing them to evict the violent partner.
Assuming it is in the periodic state Tessa AND there is no contractual clause stating otherwise i.e. that the periodic joint tenant only termin\tes their own interest.
The point that interests me in all this has not been discussed, and is this:-
“My former housemates found someone else who moved in for a month….”
so surely surrender had been accepted from Laura?
One of periodic tenants cannot just end their own interest. Thats the whole point.
Vis a vis the landlord they are all jointly ‘the tenant’ so logically the options are that one of joint tenants can either end it all for everyone or not end it at all.
Under the common law the rule is that they end it for everyone. It may not seem to make sense but thats what the law is I am afraid.
Tessa
Please quote the specific and exact Statute on this and also any Case Law supporting it.
Thanks
It is a common law rule so no statute. Here is what I think is the leading case (from the Housing Law Case Book, hopefully LAG will not mind me quoting from it):
Hammersmith and Fulham LBC v Monk [1992] 1 AC 478; [1991] 3 WLR 1144; [1992] 1 All ER 1; (1992) 24 HLR 207; (1991) 63 P&CR 373; [1992] 1 EGLR 65; (1992) 90 LGR 30; [1992] 09 EG 135, HL Service of NTQ by one joint tenant terminates tenancy
The defendant had been one of two joint tenants. Without his knowledge, the other tenant gave notice to quit to the council to terminate the tenancy. The defendant did not leave and the council sought possession. The House of Lords, upholding a series of Court of Appeal decisions, including Greenwich LBC v McGrady), held that, in the absence of any express term of tenancy to the contrary, one joint tenant can unilaterally terminate a periodic joint tenancy by giving proper notice to quit. Lord Browne-Wilkinson doubted whether the tenant who gave the notice to quit was in breach of trust towards the other joint tenant, but even if she was, that did not make the notice to quit a nullity. Accordingly, possession was granted.
Madge, Nic; Sephton, Claire (2012-03-07). Housing Law Casebook 5th edition (Kindle Locations 16831-16834). Legal Action Group. Kindle Edition.
Tessa
Hammersmith and Fulham LBC v Monk [1992] and Greenwich LBC v McGrady were the two cases I was aware of. I thought there might be another.
In Monk as you say the decision held that
“… in the absence of any express term of tenancy to the contrary, one joint tenant can unilaterally terminate a periodic joint tenancy by giving proper notice to quit.”
This is like the Guarantor Case Law – De La Croix 1915 (or similar) where it was held that a Guarantor can give notice in the periodic state unless the guarantee provides otherwise.
So back to Monk and periodic notice.
Presumably if there is an express term in the tenancy to the contrary i.e. it specifically states that any joint tenant giving notice in the periodic state does so only of their own interest and not for all of joint tenants, then that tenant only gives notice to terminate their own interest?