Charlie12345

2 months to go before the move back to our home in Yorkshire and the reality is hitting.
Furniture and shipping nearly sorted just a few forms to fill in left to do
Cats transport sorted and organized
Started clearing out and selling what we are not taking

So yesterday we gave notice to the letting agency to give 2 months notice to the tenant in our home as we didn't want to do it over Christmas as they have a small family .
Only to be informed the agency has changed the contract from a 6 month to 12 without our knowledge and we cannot terminate until July and move in until September panic sets in as a call the wife to break the news.
How can this be legal in the first place !
The wife informs me while we was planning she contacted the agency for a copy of the contract and saw it was a 12 months and has e mail confirmation stating they have changed it back to 6 .
So here we are waiting for this to be confirmed by the agency today , have they actually done it or not is the question ????
what a disaster this could turn out to be if they haven't and the tenant wont move out .

brits1

Hi, I hope all works out for you....by reason if you did not give permission for the agency to extend to a twelev month lease and they cannot prove otherwise then the family will have to vacate, all to often rental agents are a law unto themselves, not a nice situation but the fault is at the hands of the agency.
Yorkshire is one of my fav counties, a nice area to return to.
Best of luck.

vikingsail

Congratulations on your upcoming move. Here is another alternative scenario you may wish to put to the letting agency. If they did indeed change the tenant agreement without your consent and you can prove that (it seems you can from your post). Then yes its true the current tenants should leave. Alternatively, the letting agency are liable to you and arguably should be paying for you to stay somewhere for the remainder of the six months they illegally granted. This might galvanize them into some form of action e.g. moving the current tenant somewhere else and freeing up your house. I would not get to involved with the details. They created the problem it is for them to solve.

Charlie12345

Thank you for the responses contacted the agency and they have notified the tenant who understands we have to come home due to medical reasons , they are finding them somewhere and they SHOULD be out by March .
We are just going ahead with planning and packing and will keep in touch with the agency they say they have another property that will be ready for the tenant to move into so all should go ok .
So back to planting the trees in the garden from the large pots we are taking with us and sorting out what we are selling and taking for now .

Charlie12345

So thought I would give you a update after weeks of battling with the agency and taking legal advice , the tenant has finally resigned a six months contract dated from the original time and the notice has been given .
We had to threaten a section 21 eviction notice and took the advice of vikingsale and any costs we would incur when we returned would be claimed from the agency this seemed to do the trick.

I rang our long standing neighbor to tell them the news we are heading home to find out the tenant has 4 dogs in the property one is kept in a huge kennel in the back garden which is clearly stated in the contract no pets unless we agree .
so again the agency has not informed us and clearly hidden the fact when sending the 6 monthly pictures on the check up.

We have requested the tenant if we could start sending builders round for quotes for work that we are going to do when we get home as we would like to build a conservatory and completely gut the house , this has been declined .
I have read we can do this if we provide 24 hours notice to the tenant can anyone tell me if this is the case as we would like to remove some outbuildings before we return.

brits1

We rented and the landlord livedi in Spain and whenever something he wanted doing to the home..ie ivy taken off the front of the house his/our agent had to give us notice of the work and if suitable to both the work went a head....but I was informed that there was a covenant called the right to enjoyment which lets the tenant live in the property without interference from the landlord unless for essential repairs...not sure if that's still as is...it was 2016.
I would have an orangery rather than a conservatory...they can be freezing in the winter and very expensive to hear and very hot in the summer...unless you have a very well insulated conservatory...I am only mentioning this as we have had two in previous homes and really only used for very short periods..but thats my personal opinion. Good luck with everything and glad you "sorted" out the lease.

Charlie12345

Thank you for the advice I will pass it on to the project manager ie the wife :-) will definitely look into it , now we have been told the notice cannot be started because a bathroom light doesn't work so sending a electrician round , funny how they didn't inform us before !!!!
wouldn't mind we have done everything and more to make the tenants happy over the years even letting them off a months rent at Christmas when they had the last child , we have given them 2 months notice that's plenty of time to find somewhere and now they are making things difficult for us to return.
mind you finding somewhere that allows 4 dogs and 5 children might be a task unless they lie again .

spouse of scouse

Hi Charlie, I also rent out properties in the UK. Your agent has been incredibly neglectful and I wouldn't necessarily trust anything they told me now without having the proof. Have you sighted the 'new' 6 month AST?

If the agent has managed to get the tenants to abandon their original 12 month AST, then they've been very lucky. The tenants had absolutely no obligation to do that. An S21 could not have been lawfully issued until 2 months prior to that 12 month AST's completion. Usually in a situation such as this, the best a landlord could do would be to offer the tenants a financial incentive to move out prior to 10 months into the 12 months AST, and cross their fingers. So if your tenants have indeed signed a new AST then your agent has been very fortunate and I hope they didn't put undue pressure on the tenants to do this. What I'm trying to say is this is solely the agent's stuff up and I wouldn't trust them to organise the proverbial drinks in a brewery.

While I can understand your frustration at access being denied for your contractors to quote you for works, again the tenants are within their rights to do this as Brits has posted above. You have obviously been considerate landlords in the past, and since they've been living in the property for some years they presumably have also been good tenants. Perhaps their reluctance to allow contractors into the property is a result of them feeling aggrieved at having to find a new place to live before they expected to.

If the AST states that no pets are to be kept on the property without the landlord's permission, then the agent also stuffed up there. Yes, the tenants shouldn't have done this but if they've been having regular inspections and nothing has been said, then people being people, they're just going to continue on as they have been. Given that your agent has been so slack in enforcing the conditions of their AST, it's also quite conceivable that your tenants need the 2 months to bring the property back to an acceptable standard - god knows what damage has been done with 5 kids and 4 dogs! One of the joys of being a landlord

Moving forward, you've probably already done this but if not, request a copy of the new signed AST from the agent. Ask them for a copy of all correspondence between them and the tenants for the past month. Once you've satisfied yourself that the agent has been acting lawfully and appropriately (at least recently!), then all you can do is cross your fingers and hope that the tenants do indeed move out at the end of the two months. Let me know what happens and I hope things go smoothly for you from now on!