Hiya,

We are looking at giving our Letting Agent the elbow the next time the contract the next time the contract is up for renewal as they have been mucking both us and the tennant around for the past year or so.

The tennant himself is lovely and we have no desire to see him go and he has no desire to leave either. We would rather go it alone and have a tennancey agreement between us and the existing tennant.

Having gone through the agreements etc, we have found nothing that says we cant keep the tennant on if we give notice. What we are a little concerned about is this, is it illegal for us to do that?

Would it be best for us to give our notice and then get the tennant to give his notice as well?

Also, we are looking at putting the house into joint names as it is currently in my husband's name so would this nul and void any agreement between my husband and the letting agency?

Many thanks for any advice

Your tenant will not have any obligation that I have ever heard of to stay, go, or anything else to do with your Agency, he is not contracted to them unless they have writen themselves into the lease [most unlikely].

They just introduced you to him as a tenant, irelevant of whether they charged for this service to him/you or both of you.

Bottom line:

i) Tenant Stays on original Lease, unless he/she has a termed Shorthold for say
6mths or 12mths then they had the premises back, that's not general as leases go,
most ShortHold Leases tend to have a roll on month [calender that is] by month,
with each side able to give notice to quit.

ii) U give notice to quite the Agents Services, normal 1 calender mth - read your
contract it could be as little as a week?

Now think about what you are saying, if landlords gave notice to quit there agents and there agents were able to take back all the tenants, where would they put all these tenants to?

That bit about joint names will not make a halfpeny of difference to you, it will cut a couple of legal points but nothing to lose any sleep over, go ahead split it into 10 partners, it makes no odds to the tenant, he/she has a lease and is covered in law.

Oh, just a thought, but if your tenant has signed a Lease with the Agent and you have not seen sight of it, get the Agent to send you a copy, you should have one, it's your right!

If you need to issue a Shorthold Lease [best type, me thinks]then I will give you a site where you can buy a great one for £4, I took it and made some slight adjustments to suit, bearing in mind everything has to be fair to both sides of the contract.

Hope that helps, Have a good one.
Mr.Spence