Immigrants en mass invade my property ?

Reply to the comment left by "Romain " at "20/07/2014 - 10:58":

No he's the tenant, not the lessee. In the case in this thread, make no mistake that the council would enforce against the owner.

the OP granted an AST with a clause that precludes subletting. Therefore the tenant could not grant valid tenancies to the 'other occupiers' regardless of if they pay him.

Furthermore, by moving out, the tenant lost his 'assured' tenancy and fell back to being subject to a common law tenancy.

The result is a mess.

OP became aware of the overcrowding and potential breaches of safety, fire etc regulations and so MUST take action to resolve it and document that as he goes. He has to take action against his tenant and that in turn will remove those that the tenant allowed to occupy.

Given the mess and danger to life and property, using a specialist would be a very good idea.

Do you really think that, if the property burned down today killing occupants, that the authorities would happily chase the absent tenant while consoling the landlord?

Reply to the comment left by "Renovate To let" at "20/07/2014 - 11:34":

Tenant and lessee have the same meaning in this context: it is the person with the lowest interest over the full property and letting it as an HMO.

Even if there is a clause preventing subletting, the tenancies that are grented by the tenant are valid.
The difference is that they are mot binding on the higher landlord if he evicts his tenant.
A caveat is that subletting is not a continuous breach so accepting rent after being made aware of it may cause problems.

Now, indeed there is a legal duty to all landlords to prevent overcrowding, and OP should notify the council of any overcrowding to protect himself.

In any case, the bottom line is that professional legal help is needed ASAP.

As the Landlord of an HMO with up to 10 tenants I have often thought that "Duty of care" should cover me if I were to evict say a violent tenant without notice if I thought he/she was a danger to my other [now suddenly vulnerable] tenants. I've yet to have to put this to the test however but similarly I suspect a Landlord is open to litigation if he allows these squatters/tenants to live in conditions that fall below the Council's basic HMO standards even though they or the sub letters are the cause. Landlords seem to be held liable for most things after all.

We have a good relationship with our HMO officer, if we were to ring him with this problem I know he would work with us to resolve it. If you were to go to your council and explain the situation, including the fact you don't want the property to be HMO, I'm sure they will work with you to resolve the situation. It could stop you getting grief later on.

I would be surprised if the original tenants respond in any way, the model I have heard of is to let the place at a cost of a few months rent, then they have several months, maybe a year to fill the place with whoever they can collecting weekly rent from each tenant.

You can imagine how profitable this could be. The original tenants could be doing the same somewhere else already.

I would worry that involving the council would get the dimwits insisting on you doing all the HMO works on pain of a fine.

It would be interesting to hear if OP has any legal insurance, and have the wriggled out of it?

What a ridiculous rant. Luckily I doubt any readers here would be stupid enough to follow your advice.

Yes, it's possible the occupiers have no UK law savvy and might just go when threatened.....it's equally possible they might go straight to the local authority who would prosecute you for illegal eviction and harassment (plus cause the dog to be destroyed under the dangerous dogs act - almost certain if anyone was bitten).

Toothless is incorrect - we have all the processes needed to shift them. What is unfair is how slow those processes grind in this world where officialdom happily blames everything on 'the cuts'.

In this case there is a good chance that the original tenants were paid to be 'fronts' for an immigration gang and that they might well have returned home (or be on to the next one).

The original poster seems to have gone quiet....

Hi all JC here,

Many thanks for the input-good, bad and the ugly! Some of the more colourful posts here have raised a wry smile and mirrored my feelings perfectly..!

Ren-To-Let,I've not gone quite, just suffering this week with the effects of my chemotherapy (cycle 8 of 12)-at the tender age of 48 its just not funny...!

Well i contacted Paul Shimplina as recommended in the first post, top guy absolutely knows his stuff, and a phone number i recommend we all keep handy...
He recommended simply a Section 8 notice on grounds 13/15/17/19 (from memory) in effect we have various contract breaches plus false representation in the first instance, along with property in disrepair, disturbances for the neighbours etc etc, its a good strong list...

It would appear that the sub letting/tenants rights to stay argument isn't always relevant, as they would need to show official tenancy agreements etc which in this instance they most certainly don't have. The current occupants are in the employ of the official tenant and accommodation is provided as part of their employ which appears to be cash in hand....In effect you cant just grant someone a verbal tenancy agreement for that property over there...

The good news is that the section 8 grounds we will be using carry a 2 week notice period the flip side is that all grounds are discretionary, but i think it would be a hard Judge who wouldn't grant possession in this case.

Also we have tracked down the official tenant to another address locally, its obvious that it was never his intention to live at my property he's pretty much put his hand up to that he simply wanted to house his workers as cheaply as possible per head...So that suggests he's not the sharpest tool in the box --did he really think he wouldn't get rumbled? He's actively looking to move his guys out now otherwise his 2k deposit is under threat..so hopefully he's got the message and one way or another will be on his merry way!

Interestingly the council weren't that interested at this stage either-i had a long chat with a senior HMO officer who said so long as its not a situation of my making and that i'm actively taking action to evict then they were happy not to pursue any licence breaches or take enforcement action....

So there we have it-hopefully a great story for the pub in years to come.....
Rgds to all JC

Reply to the comment left by "Renovate To let" at "25/07/2014 - 08:50":

Wow aren't we all so lucky to have such an expert in our midst!
And aren't you just the expert at making assumptions about others suggestions to help others mitigate their losses.
I note from your comments that you are too scared to do anything outside the archaic, tedious and punishing system that treats the landlord as the criminal and the tenant as the poor victim. There there, you can be brave and try something else too.
I have had enough so have used some flexibility to get rid of bad tenants and have never broken the law.

I didn't know taking your dog with you was a crime, WOW all this time I was breaking the law!! They're going to destroy my dog,

I didn't know asking someone to leave was illegal
Whilst asking people to leave doesn't always work, it sometimes does and save landlords thousands
I got rid of drug dealing tenants in 2 hours last year, against their wishes, I didn't brake any laws, just used my smarts, i didnt even go to the property, just made some outrageous calls the council and police, and it worked, they came and shifted them inside 2 hours. You wouldn't want to know what i said now would you?
I guess trying something else is ridiculous, SORRY RTL Expert 🙁
There rules are just that, you carry on following them and I will keep ranting ridiculously