Thank you. I don’t think the fact helps that I was moving here (Staffordshire) from Birmingham either.

I didn’t think this would happen, I didn’t expect it to be perfect but I didn’t expect him to be a scumbag. He tried telling my mum (our guarantor) that he was poor. His contractor friend told me he not long built an annex on his already huge property, and the landlord himself told me he was going away on holiday for the second time in 3 months. But he’s poor! Upstairs and next door who we’re friends with no exactly what I think now of them though (we’re good friends and we’ve all agreed he just can’t be bothered) of course none of them have really pushed to get things done so he leaves them alone. If he tries to visit in the mean time, I’m not going to allow him in and if he insists on trying to enter then I’ll call the police line. Actually, I could have been so nasty and just not let him in when he came round even though he said he was coming. (I would have gone over my contract to call him back as I was out of minutes)

I really appreciate the advice and input. I know not all landlords are bad, I guess I just drew the short straw. I ended up staying at my fellas houseshare (2nd year of uni at the time) and his landlord was one of the nicest guys I had ever met! He was a little old gent and he was so nice, he tried his best to resolve problems and actually came round to maintain the backgarden himself with his wife and always kept people informed and was very nice about me practically moving in there, he could have (and I wouldn’t have argued it) wanted to add a little more to his rent but no, he was lovely and sang my fellas praises about what a good tennant he is. I hope the other agents we go to (if we can get this flat we view on Saturday) are as nice. Their writing and talking in person seems a lot nicer than the current agents website (who sound all ME ME ME LANDLORD MONEY ME ME AND I GUESS MAYBE YOU) fingers crossed eh. Though this new place is beautiful, looks in good repair, modern, well cared for unlike this place. Theres a floorboard that goes doooown when you step on it as it clearly needs replacing which I said about when we moved in that needs fixing (as they said the day before we got the keys the floorboards were being done that day, and they were.. just in one room) and this is the most trodden area of the house as you come in, go through the kitchen in to this room and it’s right in the door way. Speaking of the kitchen, that’s not even level. :|

Sorry for ranting on there. Needless to say, I’m not happy! I really hope the next tenant doesn’t have so much bad luck with this all. I hope the landlord has gotten the sense to actually fix it properly (the things he did fix, he did a half job so they’d probably break sooner and cost him even more in the long run.) I quite enjoy this blog/site. It’s nice to see things from the other side and does restore my faith a little!

As far as I’m concerned, you have them hoisted in a gibbet for the sport of their own crows. You have a cast-iron agreement to a tenancy expiring in Jan 2013.

Early release of your rights is on terms acceptable to you. Make them sweat! Bring a friend of your Aunt in if they appear to refuse to listen to you.

Yes, I agree your point about how badly your story paints the landlord. I hope my advice goes a littel way to helping realise not all landlords are awful! Make sure to tell lots of your local friends how bad this place is.

My aunt is a solicitor although she specialises in family law but she might be able to give us some advice or be able to consult with a collegue.

We do want to just get out of here, but that’s not the point, it’s that they’re trying to take us for a ride and the way they have treated us is absolutley disgusting.

Thanks for your further details. English contract law demands three things:
Offer (they invited you to stay for a year)
Acceptance (you signed the forms)
Consideration (you gave them money)

So:
1 = Have you kept the agent’s original letter offering renewal;
2 = Did you take a photocopy of the form you completed?
3 = Did they cash your cheque in?

If you’ve got 1 and / or 2 and also they’ve done 3, then you have enough evidence to show the landlord’s agent has bound the landlord into offering you a further year. The fact they have not got round to the admin of issuing a replacement agreement with the new dates on it is immaterial.

Then you’ve got the ace cards in the negotiation. This is guesswork, but either the agent has mucked up and offered renewal when the landlord told them not to or the landlord has changed his mind. Either way someone is trying to do something naughty to you to cover up their mistake / change of mind.

Decide if you want to leave the dump. Then extract a high price for the highly valuable right of early release.

BTW: I think the council person probably reviewed the form to make sure it was drafted properly. My opinion of council workers is that they are really good at knowing housing law and regulations, but not very good at knowing contract law. This is a contract law issue. If you’ve got a friendly solicitor or para-legal in commercial practice, give them a shout.

Let us know how you get on.

The sockets did spark.. Desperate times unfortunately.
We signed a form that asked us if we wanted to renew etc after a letter saying We’re delighted to inform you your landlord whats to renew with you blah blah etc. We signed acompanying form and paid the fee (they is the Estate Agents) this was a week or so before Christmas. Come January 4th, we recieve a section 21 notice. There are less than 2 months left, I’m not sure how to play it. Council bloke says the notice they sent us what perfectly fine after I showed it to him (I don’t see how!) and that no, we did not have a case. They (agents) have said oh yes you will get your fee back, upon my mid sentence asking about ending before the notice was up, he hung up on me. As far as they’re concerned, we didn’t renew our tenancy, they just have £125 for no apparent reason unless he decided around the same time he didn’t want to renew but in that case we could have been told and he could have had us out by the 14th Jan instead. It makes no sense to me.

In one of your many other posts you say you paid a £125 fee to renew your tenancy which you have not had offered back.

If you renewed the tenancy agreement from Jan 2012 to Jan 2013 then your Landlord can not issue a Section 21 notice asking for two months to terminate the tenancy, see http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/blog/difference-between-section-8-and-section-21-notice/ for more info.

If they want posession of your property before the tenancy ends (Jan 2013), they will have to either:
+ Issue a section 8 notice and for that to be agreed by the court the landlord must be able to prove you’ve done something very wrong under the agreement
+ Bargin with you to see if you’ll end the tenancy early by mutual consent. And of course you can do this, or not, on terms acceptable to you.

I don’t know what you mean by “they threw it out”. Who’s “they”?

Your other posts paint a picture of a mould infested eletrical deathtrap run by a landlord who’s the DIY-er from hell. Why you renewed is beyond me but as you can’t change the past, if I were in your shoes, I’d be reminding the landlord of my legal rights; telling him I’ll assert the rights I have and be more vigorous in with-holding rent in the future to fix maintenance problems he refuses to get resolved professionally (this will drive him mad – spending his money on a house he may plan to dispose of) and inviting him to put down a sensible offer for the early termination of the tenancy. Those terms to include a guarantee of the return of the deposit.

You describe people identifying the house as for rent (I’d guess because of a For Rent sign in the front garden) and walking up your drive to take a closer look. Whilst this is incredibly bad mannered, it is not the fault of your Housing Association landlord.