Advice needed about landlord tenant issue

[Oz83]

About 3 years ago I emigrated to Sweden. At the time, one of my friends was going through a messy separation and found himself living back at his parents' house. The logical solution was for him to rent the house from me. We drew up a tenancy agreement which expired after one year, but has not been renewed. We have kept in touch and he has continued to pay rent on time until last month.

He pays in arrears and I didn't take a deposit. I already had to cover last months mortgage, and he has told me that he doesn't intend to pay this month either. He said he 'might' be out by the end of the month. Basically his girlfriend wants to buy a property, so he has decided he needs the money for a deposit rather than paying me. They are house searching so if they don't find somewhere, this might drag out for a while.

With me being in Sweden I can't just pop round for a chat, and he is now ignoring my calls/emails/messages.

With no tenancy agreement in place, this isn't really a tenant/landlord situation. Where do I stand with regards to the law? Can I just change the locks when he's out then arrange for his stuff to be moved to somewhere secure for him to collect, or will this get me into trouble?

Any advice would be much appreciated...I'm flying over tomorrow to try to sort things out.

[PurpleMoonlight]

Yes there is a tenancy.

Once the AST expires it automatically becomes a periodical tenancy.

All the Law still applies.

[TooMany2cvs]

Oz83 said:

With no tenancy agreement in place, this isn't really a tenant/landlord situation.

Yes, there is, and yes, it is.

There might not be a written tenancy, but there's presumed to be a typical assured shorthold tenancy in place. And that says two months notice from the landlord before you can apply to a court for possession.

No, you can't just change the locks and turf his stuff out - that'd be an illegal eviction.

How much value do you put on your continued friendship?

[jas xjr]

I would have a word with your "friend," first. His ability to obtain a mortgage could be severely affected if you took legal action to recover the unpaid rent.
Although I imagine he would bet on you not going legal.

[surveyor]

To evict him would take a while, and hence it would take a while to end up on a credit reference.

I'm not sure if there is anything to stop you putting a small claim in for the arrears without trying to evict him. Advantages are it's relatively quick and cheap to do. Telling him your doing this and that it would show on the credit searches.... It's a tad underhand - but he's not much of a mate anyway.

Hopefully a legal beagle will confirm whether my strategy is possible. It's not one I've seen used before.

as others have said - the original 12 month agreement will become a periodic one so you do have a contract in place. To begin proceedings I believe you need 2 full months arrears

[Oz83]

Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated.

This is all new to me. I just read up on periodic tenancy. What I understand is that as he hasn't paid the rent last month, he is now in breach of the tenancy agreement. Hopefully I can sort this out amicably but I guess if he doesn't pay this month too, I can serve him with a section 8 notice.


edit - I didn't see the most recent posts until after I replied. So thanks for your replies...

There's a little more to this than I first explained, but it's not really fully relevant so I didn't want to go into too much detail. His credit is shot to pieces anyway and he is pretty useless with money, despite being very trustworthy (until recently). The sad thing is that the house is he saving for/contributing towards will be in his girlfriends name (who he as been seeing for 9 months), as the banks won't touch him. We've been friends for 25 years but if he's willing to st on the mate who put a roof over his (and his kids') head for 3 years, then I'm sad to say this is the end.

Edited by Oz83 on Sunday 6th September 20:06

[bearman68]

If I need to serve a section 8 I use on of the solicitors advertising on line. It's about £40 IIRC, and they manage to get all the legal words in the right order that says pay up or else...... Usually works

[Oz83]

bearman68 said:

If I need to serve a section 8 I use on of the solicitors advertising on line. It's about £40 IIRC, and they manage to get all the legal words in the right order that says pay up or else...... Usually works

Sounds reasonable, cheers for that!

To be honest I just want him out so I can move on. It takes far too much time and energy dealing with this sort of thing when I could be doing something productive.

[TooMany2cvs]

Oz83 said:

We've been friends for 25 years but if he's willing to st on the mate who put a roof over his (and his kids') head for 3 years, then I'm sad to say this is the end.

Then two months overdue on the rent means s8 notice to quit becomes an option.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_Notice#Gro...

[S11Steve]

I was in the exact same scenario recently, albeit not with a friend of 25 years. It was my former home and I helped out two friends whose rented property was about to be sold. The original tenancy agreement "expired" in April, and as soon as mentioned I had to increase the rent they stopped paying. I tried to negotiate and explain that the mortgage rate had increased, as well as a few other costs like insurance. Besides, they were always late with payments and took a lot of chasing each month.

I served notice in June and they promised to pay me the following week for the arrears - this never happened. I told them I would have no hesitation to serve a Court claim which they said I was bluffing. In August I issued a Moneyclaim summons for £70, which to my surprise they accepted and are now paying me back at £100 per month. They left the house in August and I've spent this weekend cutting grass and cleaning ovens that haven't been touched since they moved in, and repainting the rooms that were a psychedelic mess, and painted by Ray Charles after a pint of Jack Daniels. They also left a significant amount of rubbish around the place.