Tenancy Agreement

[Guest]

I have a Tenancy Agreement that doesn't mention what would happen for the situation I am in, so I need help.

I have been in this house for 1 year, and have to renew the contract every 6 months. When I signed the contract, the landlord told me it was just going to be me and other 3 people in the house, she told me the house has another spare room but she didn't want to rent it as it has a boiler in it. A couple of days after she made me and the other tenants renew our contracts, she decided to rent a spare room in the house that she has never rented previously, without giving any of us any notice about bringing a fifth person in or asking for our opinions.

We all signed the contract thinking we were going to be 4 people max in the house, and we do not want to stay until the end of our contract for this reason. Is the allowed to do something like this if it's not mentioned in our tenancy agreement? And are we then allowed to leave before our tenancy terminates and possibly get our full deposit back?

Thank you in advance.

[lgfa92]

Is your contract a joint one for the whole property or just a room in the property ?

[HSV]

Is your contract a joint one for the whole property or just a room in the property ?

It's just for a room in the property!

[lgfa92]

It's just for a room in the property!

Not really a lot that can be done - you still have your tenancy on your room and that is still valid. It's unlikely by the sounds of it that you could easily argue the tenancy has been breached by the landlord.

You can ask the landlord to break the tenancy but if they say no then you're stuck in an argument and, if you vacated, they could try and take a small claims case. Assuming it's just a standard 6 month AST then there's no need to sign again every 6 months as the tenancy would, by law enter a periodic tenancy - you then would not need to give more than 1 months notice whereas under a 6 month AST you're more restricted.

Who is paying the council tax on the property ?

[HSV]

Not really a lot that can be done - you still have your tenancy on your room and that is still valid. It's unlikely by the sounds of it that you could easily argue the tenancy has been breached by the landlord.

You can ask the landlord to break the tenancy but if they say no then you're stuck in an argument and, if you vacated, they could try and take a small claims case. Assuming it's just a standard 6 month AST then there's no need to sign again every 6 months as the tenancy would, by law enter a periodic tenancy - you then would not need to give more than 1 months notice whereas under a 6 month AST you're more restricted.

Who is paying the council tax on the property ?

Thank you for your help, I think at this point I would just try and ask the landlady to reduce my 6 months to 3. If she doesn't I will do the 6 months and leave afterwards, I just wanted to understand if there was something else that could be done! She pays the council tax, all our bills are included in the rent.

[seduraed]

Do you have all the necessary for an HMO? That is to say Fire doors interlinked mains alarms Electrical Certificate? With five persons in the house it has become a large HMO and requires mandatory licensing. This is At least £500 for application and more for the inspection. It may be worth ponting this out to hwer and the four to five person boundary is quite onerous.

[HSV]

Do you have all the necessary for an HMO? That is to say Fire doors interlinked mains alarms Electrical Certificate? With five persons in the house it has become a large HMO and requires mandatory licensing. This is At least £500 for application and more for the inspection. It may be worth ponting this out to hwer and the four to five person boundary is quite onerous.

I am not sure about this but I will have a read and I will definitely point this out to her! Thank you so much