Landlords are obliged by law to carry out inspections of their property’s gas and electric systems. This is to ensure that the properties are safe for their tenants.
However, amazingly some tenants refuse access – even for gas safety inspections. Even though gas can be incredibly dangerous if the appliances are not properly maintained.
Landlords also need to carry out general property inspections, at least every six months. This is to ensure that:
- There are no unauthorised occupiers – which could turn the property into an HMO making landlords liable for additional regulation and potentially liable for big penalties for non-compliance
- The tenants are not engaging in illegal behaviour – such as converting the property to a cannabis farm or using it for trafficked people
- There are no repair issues – which if unattended could get worse and become more expensive to deal with
For all these reasons, regular inspection of rented properties is now a requirement of most landlord insurance policies. Meaning that claims could be rejected if you don’t do them.
So what can landlords do?
Well, if tenants are uncooperative, landlords can’t just use their keys and go in anyway. That would be illegal and would make the landlord vulnerable to harassment claims and maybe other penalties (maybe even a claim for a rent repayment order).
The best thing is to take care in choosing tenants so this is less likely to happen in the first place. Then before tenants go into occupation, landlords (and their agents) should explain the need for inspections to them so they are less likely to object.
If tenants still object, then there are a whole raft of things you can do, depending on the circumstances, ranging from sending letters to applying for a Court Injunction (most often used for gas access situations).
Help is at hand
Hopefully, this situation will never happen to you – but if it does it may be comforting to know that there is a special Landlord Law Kit, the Property Access Kit, available that can lead you through the process and provide practical help and advice.
Including:
- An explanation of the law
- Draft letters you can adapt to your particular situation
- Dealing with criminal tenants
- Draft wording for notices
- Detailed guidance (including draft forms) for obtaining a Court Order for an injunction (prepared by housing barrister Robert Brown), and
- Help and guidance on obtaining a possession order
.
“Landlords also need to carry out general property inspections, at least every six months.”
That is an over generalisation that is unnecessary for the vast majority of tenancies.
No doubt it will be added to the raft of recent legislation that benefits neither landlords nor tenants.
Here we go;
https://www.gedling.gov.uk/media/gedlingboroughcouncil/documents/housing/selectivelicensing/SL%20Conditions%20of%20the%20scheme%20FINAL.pdf
“The licence holder shall ensue that inspections of the property are carried out at least
every six months”
Totally unnecessary for the vast majority of tenancies.
“To check if unauthorized persons on site ” Does a landlord have any legal right to do this ?, If in law a tenant has the right to exclude anyone from entering “his or hers property “including the landlord, doesn’t this mean that the tenant can decide who can stay on the property ? Otherwise the Landlord could decide what partner you can live with !
Landlords have the right to limit the number of people living in a property. Otherwise, the tenants can turn the property into an unauthorised HMO which could have s serious financial implications for landlords.
Also if the landlord already has an HMO license these normally carry conditions limiting the number of persons who can live at the property.
It’s not about forcing tenants to have a different boyfriend.
“Landlords have the right to limit the number of people living in a property.”
Good luck getting a possession order on those grounds!
If both a tenancy agreement and the HMO license say that there should not be more than, say, six people living at the property and the tenants introduce two more unauthorised occupiers – putting the landlord in breach of his HMO license. Then yes, I think the landlord would have a good chance of getting a possession order – if the tenants refused to remove the unauthorised people.
However, it would be a discretionary ground so the Judge would probably make a suspended possession order.
What constitutes “living” at the property though? If a tenant has their partner stay over several nights a week but the partner lives elsewhere, not necessarily as a full tenant but say with their folks or maybe sofa-surfing or in their car or on a park bench a token number of nights per month and doesn’t get any post at the tenant’s address, what then? And what if the partner stayed nearly all the time but actually did have a full tenancy elsewhere that was their principle or main residence for postal, banking electoral and council tax purpose?
What does a landlord do in practice if they have the kind of tenant that operates a “revolving door” overnight guests policy but the guests are not the same every time? And what would the other tenants be able to do?