Ending a shorthold TA early

[Alan_Cieslar]

Hi, I am writing this in hope that I can get some sort of advice in terms of ending a shorthold tenancy agreement as I am in a desperate position. Me and my partner have a joint 12 month shorthold tenancy on a flat in Leicester and it started in September 2017. We live in a small block of a few flats which are all owned by the same landlord. We have had numerous problems with the flat itself and the neighbours since the beginning. First of all when we moved in many things were in a poor conditions, such as broken freezer draws, no handles on some doors, cracked tiles in the floor and walls and also lots of marks on walls around the flat. We complained to the landlord about it and we had the major issues solved by him. The neighbours however are the biggest of our problems. The 2 flats below us are constantly causing noise disturbances through slamming doors in the middle of the night, screaming/shouting and loud music & parties. We have spoken directly to them but that did not change much. We have used the help of Leicester Council noise disturbance team which have witnessed some of these noise disturbances themselves which resulted in warning letters being sent to the neighbours and the landlord. Unfortunately we have only been able to use their help a handful of times because they don't have long opening hours (9-4pm Monday & Tuesday, 9-2am Wednesday to Saturday and theyre closed all day on Sunday). Most of these parties happened outside these hours, often on weekdays. I have listened to the landlord tell the neighbours off and the last time he told me that he would be evicting them (this was in December but he clearly hasn't because he wants their money). Our contract clearly states "Not permit any sound to emanate from the Premises which may cause annoyance to other occupiers of the Building or in any event between the hours of 11pm and 8am. I presume their contract will have the same term, which means that they have clearly broken it numerous times (we have evidence in video form and when the council witnessed it). We have just received a note from a neighbour that they will have a party on Wednesday night. Is there any legal help I could seek that would allow me to use this contract term against them & the landlord? We are sick and tired of this situation, she's a uni student and I am full time employed and we just cannot live somewhere where we can't sleep on weekdays. Another thing is that we don't feel safe here. We believe that the flat below us deal drugs as there are often dodgy people in the building. They also nearly killed us once by leaving their gas leaking from their cooker all weekend. We were away from the weekend and shortly after we came back we felt unwell so we called british gas which cut off the building's gas supply for 2 days whilst investigating the cause of the smell. After 2 days that flat owned up to the landlord that they accidentally left their gas on all weekend. We were lucky not to blow up the whole place as we had showers but what if instead we decided to cook that night? They have severely endangered our lives so is that something we could use to our advantage?

I have uploaded a copy of the a page in our contract that I think is relevant to my main question. I do not understand contract language very well so I'm hoping someone could help me in understanding if there may be a break clause in the contract. We cannot live like this for another 6 months and theres no doubt that it will be even worse in the summer when people obviously drink, party etc. Is there anything we can do, any legal help that we can get that would allow us to end our contract before September? We are extremely desperate to find a way out from this situation.

[jpkeates]

You almost certainly can't leave until the end of the fixed term without the landlord's agreement.
There doesn't appear to be any break clause in what you've posted.

If the neighbour is a student tenant it's unlikely that they could be evicted before the end of their fixed term either.

If they're letting you know that they're having a party and they don't happen too frequently, that seems about all they can do.
It's a problem living in flats generally.

[JK0]

I am going to stick my neck out here and suggest you just leave, and invite the landlord to sue you if he thinks he has a leg to stand on. Presumably you have some documentation about your problems?

You will get no reference from this guy, but I would not have thought that was a major issue.

[AndrewDod]

I am going to stick my neck out here and suggest you just leave, and invite the landlord to sue you if he thinks he has a leg to stand on. Presumably you have some documentation about your problems?

You will get no reference from this guy, but I would not have thought that was a major issue.

He JK0 - I pretty much mostly agree with you on other matters -- but certainly not here - Tenant will almost certainly lose if gets sued (which I imagine would be the case), would also lose deposit and have problems finding another place with no reference and a major blot on their record.

I suggest T approach landlord with some sort of cash offer to end the tenancy -- something between 2 and 5 months would I guess be reasonable - probably closer to three.

[Alan_Cieslar]

You almost certainly can't leave until the end of the fixed term without the landlord's agreement.
There doesn't appear to be any break clause in what you've posted.

If the neighbour is a student tenant it's unlikely that they could be evicted before the end of their fixed term either.

If they're letting you know that they're having a party and they don't happen too frequently, that seems about all they can do.
It's a problem living in flats generally.

How does them being students affect it? Students can get kicked out of student halls so they should be able to be evicted from residential flats too. Them giving us a heads up doesn't change anything, in fact, we are more worried because last time they gave us a note, it was the worst party we experienced as we were kept up till 6am by extremely loud music.

I am going to stick my neck out here and suggest you just leave, and invite the landlord to sue you if he thinks he has a leg to stand on. Presumably you have some documentation about your problems?

You will get no reference from this guy, but I would not have thought that was a major issue.

The Leicester city council has kept record of all the times they have been round which is the only official proof we have of the noise disturbances. Apart from that we have taken videos of the noise that can be heard inside our flat and then clearly showed which flat it was coming from. I really wish we could leave early but unfortunately we cannot afford to pay that much money as well as paying for deposit/rent up front for another property.

[KTC]

How does them being students affect it? Students can get kicked out of student halls so they should be able to be evicted from residential flats too.

Private student let are almost certainly fixed term for the entire student year, hence it likely the landlord even if they were trying is having difficulty legally evicting them. Student at university hall have much less security than in private rental on AST. It is much easier for a university to kick a student out the halls than a private landlord evicting someone.