Is a tenancy voidable as fraud if tenant lies on application?

Reply to the comment left by "Andrew Holmes" at "14/07/2015 - 13:14":

My ex-tenants had been evicted by me, but they gained access to another property through an estate agent, I am their previously landlord, never been contacted for reference? How did they do it? I guess they gave false address etc.? It is all drivers by getting tenants in and gets paid as quickly as possible.
After my eviction, I did try to use landlord zone’s tenant verify application, I feel this form give you a better picture of prospective tenants. But put some people off, they said I asked too much information.

Reply to the comment left by "wanda wang" at "14/07/2015 - 19:58":

Hi Wanda
You could do the new landlord a great justice and inform him of the tenant's behaviour and historic actions. He will have more evidence and will get a quicker eviction.
I personally think these scammers are aware that we will always follow the law to the letter, and they can abuse the system to their advantage.
I would not hesitate to inform any person, and dame the data protection, if a tenant is a crook, then he should expect to be treated as such!

You need to be wary of candidate tenants that say they are living with their parents, especially if they are not listed on the electoral register. It could be due to a previous eviction.

Reply to the comment left by "Luke P" at "13/07/2015 - 12:36":

Hi Luke

Most of the responses (so far) seem to be drifting into comments about letting agents not doing their job properly, or examples of tenants who have told lies to get a tenancy, though there are one or two comments about the legalities of fraudulent applications.

Although most of my conclusions in the original posting were based on standard contract law, there is at least one example of caselaw that specifically relates to the voidable basis of a tenancy obtained by fraud, and this was the Court of Appeal case of Killick v Roberts (1991).

The Killick v Roberts case was about statutory tenancies, however, it does seems to establish/reinforce the principle that if a tenant made a fraudulent misrepresentation which induced the landlord to grant the tenancy, then the landlord is entitled to have the tenancy rescinded (treated as if it were void, i.e. as if the tenancy does not exist). The three Court of Appeal judges in this case agreed that "The policy of the Rent Act 1977 is to protect those who have been contractual tenants. It is not to protect someone who, having been deprived of his contractual tenancy, is adjudged not to have been entitled to occupy the premises in the first place." Although this is referring to the Rent Act 1977, not the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, it does appear to me that the PEA 1977 also seeks to protect those who had a valid contractual tenancy, not those whose tenancy is void or rescinded (as in those cases the contractual tenancy is treated as if it does not exists from the point at which it is rescinded/voided.

If the contract (tenancy) is voided or rescinded due to tenant application fraud, then any "rights" stemming from it cannot exist. I believe that this potentially gives a defence to any accusation of breach of PEA 1977 (unlawful eviction) if you simply changed the locks while they were out (after notifying the person that the tenancy was rescinded/voided), as you cannot be unlawfully evicting someone who never had a right to have the tenancy in the first place. I guess an analogy would be locking out a visitor (someone who does not have a legal right of occupation).

As there are clearly many landlords affected by fraudulent applications, and the standard s8/s21 process is so time consuming and costly, then in these limited circumstances perhaps this provides an alternative strategy, but I guess it will take a very brave landlord to test this in court.

Essentially, once residing/living/staying at a property (in whatever capacity), whether there through illegal activity or fraudulent representation, the law governing your eviction is tenancy/housing -as opposed to general contract- law, right?

Also people who say their spouse/partner is living overseas. In my case this wasn't true. The partner had been the named tenant for the previous property from which it turned out the family had also been evicted due to non payment of rent. I've since read that this is quite a common trick.

Reply to the comment left by "Robert Mellors" at "15/07/2015 - 10:53":

That's really interesting Robert. I wondered whether something like this would be an option when I found out that my tenant had given fraudulent references. However by the time it came to light after the rental for the second month was unpaid he had been in the property for about six weeks having paid a months rent in advance. It seemed to be the assumption that he was therefore protected by the Rent Act and presumably the other act, which nobody has mentioned to me. I guess you would need concrete proof that the references were fraudulent before voiding the tenancy and potentially could incur higher costs than the standard eviction process if the tenant chose to contest the case? It can also be hard to get the police to take these cases on especially if you report it through Action Fraud but if they were investigating and criminal proceedings were likely this might strengthen the case for voiding the tenancy I suppose. As you say it would be a brave landlord who takes that on.

Reply to the comment left by "Luke P" at "15/07/2015 - 11:01":

Tenancy law is founded upon contract law because a tenancy is a contract for housing. There are additional rules relating to tenancies, e.g. repairing obligations etc, but the basic agreement that entitles a person to occupy accommodation is a contract, hence why in the Killick case the judges refer to the tenant as a contractual tenant, i.e. his right to occupy is conferred by virtue of a contract (tenancy agreement). Thus, the principles of contract law do apply to tenancies.

However, I cannot find any recent caselaw that examines the relationship between the contractual right of voidance and rescission in situations where the contract for accommodation was induced through fraudulent misrepresentation, and the laws relating to eviction within the PEA 1977. BUT, the PEA 1977 does define an "occupier" (for the purposes of that Act) as someone who is "lawfully residing" in a property but if the contract is voidable (and the landlord takes step to void it) then the person is no longer "lawfully residing" there as there was no lawful tenancy, so presumably they would have no protection under the PEA 1977.

Reply to the comment left by "Rob Crawford" at "15/07/2015 - 08:03":

Hi Rob,

A credit check will show you where they have previously lived and for how long, i wont take a tenant without one as it makes my house insurance void if i have not done a credit check on a tenant, it is a great way to weed out those that wont have one done as they know it shows information about themselves they would sooner their landlord did not know.

Andy

Reply to the comment left by "Robert Mellors" at "15/07/2015 - 11:35":

I would presume so too, but you can bet that this 'loophole' would be sewn up pretty quick, even if we were able to exploit it because I would hazard a guess that if I dug deep enough, half of my tenants will have told an untruth on their applications somewhere and I could sit on the knowledge until it suited me. Landlords would start to utilise this on a large scale to circumvent the Courts and Mr Govt wouldn't be too happy about that.