Industry body seeks input from landlords over eviction guidance from councils

Reply to the comment left by Blodwyn at 08/01/2024 - 17:06
so how can a landlord prove that the tenant has lied? What evidence would be deemed acceptable to prove this? Would you pick it up under S8 Ground 12 and 17?

Of course you would go for the mandatory grounds first but no harm listing these too - give the judge a good insight into the tenant...

I realise its going off the OP slightly but interesting none the less as I think it does piggy back the OP.

Ground 17 in S8 says The tenant is the person, or one of the persons, to whom the tenancy was granted and the landlord was induced to grant the tenancy by a false statement made knowingly or recklessly by—

(a)
the tenant, or

(b)
a person acting at the tenant’s instigation.

So you could use this clause (and 2 weeks notice) if you can show T provided false information which in this case a contact being offered.

How can I prove misrepresentation?
To bring a misrepresentation claim to a civil court, you, as the Claimant, must prove on the balance of probabilities that:
A false statement of fact or law was made
That statement induced you to enter into the contract
Because of the misrepresentation, you suffered a loss
Evidence of dishonesty or negligence will need to be provided. This could be in the form of documents, witness statements, and/or expert evidence.

As contact law is a civil matter then I presume if you can provide evidence to prove the same balance of probabilities as above, then you can use this ground?
----------------
Fraudulent misrepresentation
Where the party making the statement knows or believes it is untrue or has a reckless disregard for its truth. The Claimant does not need to establish a motive for the dishonesty. However, they must provide evidence that Defendant did not honestly believe what they were saying was true. Fraudulent misrepresentation stems from the tort of deceit.

The Courts have determined that the following four points are needed to establish deception:

The Defendant makes a false representation to the Claimant
The Defendant knows that the representation is false; alternatively, they are reckless about whether it is true or false
The Defendant intends that the Claimant should act in reliance on it
The Claimant acts in reliance on the representation and, consequently, suffers loss .

If the claimant can prove this in a civil court then it is possible to refer to The Fraud Act 2006 created the offence of false representation. Under the Act, a representation is false if it is made dishonestly to make a gain for themselves or another or cause loss or expose another to the risk of loss. If convicted of fraud by false representation, under criminal law, the Defendant can be liable for a maximum sentence of up to ten years, an unlimited fine, or both.

Can misrepresentation void a contract?
A misrepresentation makes a contract voidable by the Claimant. You can rescind the agreement and return to your position before signing the contract or accepting the deal. This is different from a void contract; in this scenario, the contract cannot be taken as it was invalid from its inception and, therefore, never existed in the first place.

A relative of mine has a house with a tenant who refuses to leave his property. Repossession has been avoided because a family.member paid off the balance on the mortgage but the house still needs to be sold. The council told the tenant she had to stay until the bailiffs came. I spoke to the council with a letter of proof from the mortgage company saying the house would be re-possessed and the council said it wasn't their problem and the landlords circumstances was of no interest to them. For reasons I don't want to discuss my relative can not serve a valid 21 (the council is aware) so we had no choice but to raise the rent to market value which the tenant (single mother, working and on benefits) can not afford. This has been a year coming so it's not an action taken lightly. I did read on Shelters website that when a tenant has a rent increase that she can not afford the council should help and give a housing plan. We are hoping that they won't force us to serve a section 8 when she goes into arrears but I get the feeling they will. I did recently pose a question (twice) about letting agents and discrimination but it doesn't appear to have been published. The tenant has found out that letting agents (who blame the reference company) will not let to this tenant unless she gets a guarantor because she is on benefits. They have also told her, they will not let her a 1 bed flat because she has a young child. They have said she could rent somewhere for £650pcm without a guarantor but this is impossible in our area. At most you would get a tiny studio flat for that price. When I submitted my post I asked if this was discrimination but as far as I'm aware it has not been posted.

Reply to the comment left by Slooky at 08/01/2024 - 18:53
Fist off - don't bother contacting with the council whatsoever. They are not interested in you and even less with the tenant. They may only be interested in helping her as a 'duty' to help but only once the tenant goes to them with an eviction notice seeking help. Inevitably they will tell her to wait for the bailiffs.

Sounds like you need to serve a S8. Has the owner ever lived in the property? If so you maybe able to use Ground 1.
You could also wait until she goes into arrears then you could use Ground 8 but she has to be in arrears over two months at the time of the notice. These two are mandatory grounds.

You could issue a S8 using instead (or as well as) discretionary grounds 10 and 11.

Have you considered Ground 9? You need to weight up if you can find somewhere to her to move to (and financially assist) against the delay in getting her out and any financial implication this might have?
Ground 12, 13?

Other option is if you have to sell then put it up for sale now with her in it. Another LL may be willing to purchase as an investment with tenant in situ. You don't need to give her formal notice for this. In fact you don't need to tell her at all unless you want the property available to view.

Id weight up all the pros and cons of each option with an understanding of cost and time each one may take and make a decision from here.

The agent always blames everyone else. At the end of the day yes many agents tell tenants they will need a guarantor, but you cant turn back time and your family member offered her a tenancy on the back of her application and if they didn't request a guarantor then well that's the way it is. (These days yes LL's often ask for a guarnator if the person on on benefits)

The agent could well be trying to put the tenant off from looking for anything else. Are they getting a management fee for looking after your relatives property? They only gain the longer the tenants stays put the house!

It is not your concern if and what the tenant can afford or not. You need to get her out so focus on that and nothing else. Good Luck.

Reply to the comment left by Slooky at 08/01/2024 - 18:53
not sure what you mean by discrimination, but if you mean in terms of the tenant not being offered a flat - then possibly...BUT not your issue! That's for her to worry about. You focus on getting her out as best you can.

I forgot you can always offer her a incentive to leave. Would she surrender the tenancy and perhaps move back with family? She can apply for council assistance? WE know that would be seen as making herself voluntarily homeless but she might not realise this and be tempted by a pay off and if she is in ret arrears at this point the promise that you also write this off (you can remind her if she is evicted by S8 rent arrears grounds then the council see this as making herself voluntarily homeless)

Reply to the comment left by Reluctant Landlord at 09/01/2024 - 09:15
Thanks for the response. As this has been ongoing for a year for one reason and another. We have looked at all those options. My understanding is ground 1 can only be used if it is mentioned in the contract that the landlord may need his home back (yes he did used to live there). There is no mention of that in the contract. If I remember correctly it's a housing Act clause and we did check and it's not in the contract. The house is not let by an Agent. My relative did not have an issue with renting to someone on benefits and she has been in the house with no problem for 10 years approx. But my relative has hit hard times and needs to sell. We now need to wait for the next rent payment date (which is the new rent) to see what happens. My relative has already had an organisation ring him on her behalf to try and negotiate the rent increase down but rightly so he refused.

There are such an abundance of comments about the difficulties that BOTH LLs and Ts in their respective stations have to sort out. It confirms what a now retired Judge commented to me many years ago (we were in the pub and he knew I knew nowt about property law, mine is different thank the Lord!) that property law and tenancy regulations were a ghastly mess, so why not start all over again? Please not a kick the can Commission but perhaps the Law Commission, a group of very learned thoughtful thinkers who do an immense amount of largely unseen good to solve what is unsolveable whilst we have the idiots of both sides running Parliament? I don't know how you can involve them but Cotswold Barristers will know better than any of us?
They seem very much clued up whenever a question is asked. As also do Tanfield Chambers in an occasional Times Column about various matters - such as was it Japanese Knotweed perhaps a year ago?

I have emailed NRLA via their site. Tenant asked us for S21 which we issued on 10th November, expires next week. The council emailed her 12th Dec to say she has a phone interview with the Homelessness Prevention team tomorrow 10th January, less than a week before her AST & S21 expire.
Their email to her reads:
"You should not leave your accommodation without speaking to us first.

If you are renting in the private sector or are an owner-occupier, you are likely to have a legal right to remain in your accommodation. This means you can stay in your accommodation until evicted by the courts. If you do not follow this advice and you become homeless, this could mean the council will have a limited duty towards you.

Please be aware the council does not have to provide you with social housing. If possible, we will help you to stay in your current home or we will assist you to find alternative accommodation, which is likely be in the private rented sector."

I have emailed a contact at the council asking them to help her (and emailed again today) but no one has contacted me as per the Code of Conduct.

So what by if the tenant is in arrears and baliffs come for eviction?

The policy of telling tenants to remain where they are until the arrival of the bailiffs, is only relevant to tenants who the council will have a duty to help with homelessness. That is, the vulnerable and people with children. This policy is not likely to affect landlords who need to repossess a property from tenants who can easily afford to find alternative accommodation.

When letting out a property, it is not legal to discriminate against those who are on benefits, or are themselves vulnerable or have children.

But given that councils have policies in place that make life more expensive and risky to house vulnerable people, why would any landlord take on this risk? Landlords have a huge choice of who to rent a property to nowadays, with reports of queues of up to 25 applicants to view each private rented property.

Councils advising tenants to remain where they are until the arrival of the bailiffs is another policy that causes discrimination against vulnerable people. Including children.