Tenancy Agreements

This isn't as such a personal issue, it's more of a where I stand issue.

I'm currently leasing a property, and trying to move to another property. But the estate agents that I currently hold an agreement with are being awkward and making things difficult, when the reason for my move is solely because of their lack of care for tenants.

So the new estate agents I'm trying to get a property with have my credit-report back, work reference and are only waiting on the reference from my current estate agents. ( baring in mind they had the others back on the 7/7/14 ) and are still waiting on my current estate agents to send a reference.

During my time with the current property I've yet to miss a single payment or a single late payment, and have fully kept to my obligations of the agreement. Whereas, they have not.

I've wrote my tenancy termination notice out and that will be handed in tomorrow. And I've tried to include anything that could come back to bite me if not mentioned.

This is the first property that I have leased, and am unsure what sort of tricks they're going to play as they seem like a dirty company just trying to rip anyone and everyone off.

If you have experience with my current circumstance I would appreciate some help, or if you know where I stand legally so I can sue them if they try to do anything funny.

This property is held in the UK.

 

Not sure about the UK, but over here we have code enforcement. My buddy was renting an old 1800s farmhouse, and when he first started renting it, the owner said it's new renovated and nothing is wrong with it, then a few months in a bunch of stuff just starting falling apart, the one spot on the front porch rose up in a triangle shape, which made his brother trip and hurt his foot, the furnace in the basement wasn't working, and this was in the middle of winter when we had really bad weather and it was like 20 degrees in that house. He simply moved out and held both places until he was able to get code enforcement out there and check it out and say it was inhabitable and tell the property owner that he can either release my buddy from the lease, or my buddy will take him to court over it and most likely win.

 

So I should seek legal advice if they do not co-operate with my current stance?

 

Call code enforcement and have them do an investigation. I had to do this with a previous landlord I was leasing from because they wouldn't fix anything, lived 5 hours away and ignored me anytime I contacted them, I finally got in contact with them and they hung up on me. Might be called something other than code enforcement in the UK.

 

If you're trying to leave and they won't let you out of the lease, then yes. But it's not really legal advice, as you won't need a lawyer, you just need to call code enforcement and they have the right to tell the owner what to do. At least that's how it is in the US, what they say, goes.

 

If you have a leased signed you probably won't have an easy time trying to get out of it. Generally you have to pay the remainder of the rent unless you can find something like the boiler you are talking about. If you can have some sort of building authority check it out and it fails and you can prove they have don't anything about it in X amount of time then it would be easy to get out of it, if not then you are probably just shit out of luck.

You aren't going to be able to sue them unless you can prove that this is an on-going issue and that the issue is actually causing damages in some way. Even then you're not out anything meaning you probably won't be able to get any monetary rewards, but it will release you from the lease.

Since this involves both administrative (building codes, and such) and common law (the tenancy/lease agreement) I have to tell you that I am speaking from someone in the US. The common law will remain mostly the same, but administrative codes change for different areas. Definitely talk to a building authority of some sort and request an inspector.

 

I started the lease with a six month contract and then it doesn't renew, you literally stay there until you give a month notice. I've been there about 2 years now, so in that sense I'm fine. It's part of their obligation to the tenant to provide an annual service on the boiler, which hasn't happened. Therefore, they have not met the standards of the signed agreement. And as it is the boiler that has caused the damage I'm in no way shape or form to blame for the issue.

But thanks for the advice guys, I've now sorted it with the agency and I get my new keys on Saturday.