Here is a question to the blog clinic from Paul who is a landlord:
Am I as landlord responsible for the social behaviour of my tenants?
The short answer Paul is no.
As a general rule, one person cannot be held responsible for something done by someone else. There are very few exceptions:
- Employers are sometimes responsible for things done by their employees in the course of their employment
- Parents are sometimes responsible for things done by their children (I think – but I am not an expert here, I could be wrong)
- Husbands used to be held responsible for the debts of their wives but that rule was done away with a long time ago
So if in all innocence you rent a property to a tenant (such as the young lady in the picture) who turns out to be a nightmare tenant who goes around insulting the neighbours, having loud parties and generally being disruptive – you are not liable for the things that they do.
Local Authorities would quite like to make landlords responsible for the anti-social behaviour of their HMO tenants, but as we explained in Part 10 of the HMO Legal Basics series, if they try to impose this on you via a condition on your HMO license, this is something that can be challenged.
The only time you could be perhaps held liable is if you deliberately put someone in occupation knowing that they were going to be disruptive. But that would technically be a very difficult claim for anyone to bring and prove.
I talk a bit about this in the context of neighbours in the post here.
So the answer is almost certainly ‘no’.
You may not be generally responsible for their behaviour but if you are receiving substantiated complaints you ought to notify them and encourage them to stop.
Croydon Council are currently consulting on a borough wide licensing scheme, that according to Nat Landlords Assoc, will require landlords to control visitors to the tenant and any resulting Anti Social Behaviour that they say are unworkable.
if the NLA are correct in their interpretation, then I would tend to agree with them, that is a rare ocurrence. Unfortunately the basis for allowance of additional licensing is that ASB is present in the area.
Perhaps the only feasible application would be that a landlord takes ‘reasonable’ action as a part of the management of the property when reports or complaints are made to them of the conduct of visitors. That could include a consideration of an eviction of the tenant, but could not require a landlord to do something that would rightly be that of statutory services.
It is a stated permissible condition of an HMO or selective licensing scheme for the local authority to impose such reasonable conditions on a landlord as are required to control anti-social behaviour. I doubt that this would be reasonable.
Especially as a local authority cannot impose a condition on a third party (such as a tenant or a visitor) and is also not permitted to impose a condition that seeks to procure a change in a tenancy agreement.
There is no workable way I can think of to impose this condition that would not violate the two other limits on licence conditions.
Surely any reasonable tenancy agreement should include some conditions pertaining to noise/anti-social behaviour in the property? Tenants who behave thusly are unlikely to have any respect for the property anyway. I am experiencing anti-social behaviour problems with nearby social housing/housing association tenants, the experiment of mixing social housing with private developments will only work IF there are provisions to challenge and eliminate such behaviour. After all it took me 25 years to pay for my property, now unsellable, due to the behaviour of transient tenants who ruin a neighbourhood before being moved on to ruin another neighbourhood.
KJW. Most standard form Shorthold tenancy agreements will have clauses relating to breaches of the terms of the agreement that may include excess noise or disturbance to neighbours etc. It will be up to the private landlord to decide how that will be dealt with. But it can not give rise to an obligation towards third parties, who are not a signatory to the contract. If the people in the neighbourhood causing problems, are social or council tenants a report may be made to the council as their landlord who will decide what if anything can or is being done.
If the area was formerly a council estate the property in question may equally be a private tenancy and nothing to do with the local authority.
Unfortunately, while the tenant continues to pay their rent, most landlords are reluctant to get involved with anti-social behaviour issues.