Tenants Rights

Saint Sonner

My brother has recently got into financial diffs as his wife has lost her job and he is not able to work all of the time.

He is fully paid up on his rent to date (with a deposit in place – 1 month rent) but has told me he won’t be able to pay anymore unless something drastic changes – he would like to stay in the place he is in so is praying something turns up financially but also fears that with the housing crisis that he won’t be able to find anything else.
 
He had asked me (I’m no expert) a few things which I wondered if someone in here might know:
1.   If he fails to pay rent from here on how long would it be until he was evicted
2.   Does he have any options about staying on if he explains he could pay any owed rent in the future
3.   As the rental is an apartment with fob access doors is the landlord (corporate company) entitled to deactivate the fob
4.   Is the landlord entitled to let themselves in and remove his things when he is not there
It’s a bit of a mess but any help would be great.

punisher5112

He needs to seek advice from threshold.

It is wrong to stop paying.

He needs to speak to ll asap and sort something else out.

Are they elegible for any state help they need to investigate this.

Hap scheme is one and they may be able to stay where they are but the ll most likely won't go for this.

Is there any family they could stay with till money problems are sorted.

the_syco

Saint Sonner wrote: »

1.   If he fails to pay rent from here on how long would it be until he was evicted

14 day warning, and then a 28 day eviction. The deposit is for damage, not rent.

Saint Sonner wrote: »

2.   Does he have any options about staying on if he explains he could pay any owed rent in the future

If the LL is a soft touch, maybe, but otherwise no.

Saint Sonner wrote: »

3.   As the rental is an apartment with fob access doors is the landlord (corporate company) entitled to deactivate the fob

Sometimes the fob will "become faulty" after the 28 days.

Saint Sonner wrote: »

4.   Is the landlord entitled to let themselves in and remove his things when he is not there

No.

=-=

Be careful with Threshold; some of it's advice is what you want to hear, not what is legally right.

dennyk

1. If he fails to pay rent on his rent due date, the landlord can immediately serve him a notice that he is in arrears and give him 14 days to pay in full. If he corrects the delinquency within the notice period, the landlord cannot take further action. However, if he fails to pay in full by the required date as per the notice (at least 14 days), the landlord can then serve him with a 28-day notice to terminate his tenancy, after which he is legally required to vacate the property. Paying off his rent arrears once the 28-day termination notice has been served will not reinstate his tenancy rights, the tenancy has been officially terminated at that point (unless the landlord were to choose to allow him to remain, which is unlikely).

Now, should he illegally overhold and refuse to vacate the property, the process to legally remove him may take some additional time, but this would be a very bad idea and would most likely make it very difficult for him to find a place to rent in the future.

2. That's between him and the landlord. Legally speaking, if he doesn't pay rent on time, the landlord can terminate the tenancy as described above and he has no legal recourse. If the landlord wants to cut him a break or give him some extra time to correct his arrears, that's their choice, but don't expect it; landlords are running businesses, not charities, and they expect to be paid as agreed.

3. No, locking him out of the property in any fashion (changing locks, disabling electronic access, etc.) would be an illegal eviction. The landlord has to go through the proper legal channels in order to evict a tenant who refuses to leave, regardless of the circumstances.

4. No, again, that's a self-help eviction and is illegal (quite possibly rising to the status of an actual crime, if he were to destroy or steal the tenant's personal property).

Note that in the case of (3) and (4), the fact that those actions are illegal doesn't mean that the landlord won't do them anyway (or take some other similar illegal action to force your brother out without going through the legal process), so your brother should be prepared to deal with that eventuality should it occur.

dennyk

the_syco wrote: »

14 day warning, and then a 28 day eviction. The deposit is for damage, not rent.

Note that the deposit is not intended to serve in lieu of rent payment (e.g. you generally can't just fail to pay your last month's rent at the end of your tenancy because "the deposit will cover it"). However, the deposit can be retained by the landlord at the end of the tenancy to cover any outstanding rent arrears, so if he does get booted for failure to pay rent, he should not expect to get his deposit back (unless it's more than the total amount he owes plus the cost of any legitimate damages to the property).