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[jpkeates]

You can't be evicted without notice - both county court and high court bailiffs have to communicate with the occupants of a property as well as the owner. Didn't used to be the case for HCEO, but it is now.

[jpkeates]

Your landlord is whoever it says is the landlord on your tenancy agreement.
Whether they can let the property or aren't paying the freeholder is their problem, not yours.

You shouldn't change who you pay rent to unless you receive notification that there's been a change of ownership...

[jpkeates]

Thanks for that, it's very helpful.

[jpkeates]

You can't swap people in a tenancy.
It's theoretically possible and some agents do it, but it's almost impossible to get right and no one should do it.

The tenancy with the original people ends.
The deposit is returned, any damage needs to be resolved, just like a normal end...

[jpkeates]

You can serve notice on the first day of the new tenancy (which sounds like 11th October) to expire on 11th November*.
Push it through the landlord's front door, don't risk posting it.

It needs to be unequivocal, so it should say that you are leaving on or before 11th November, and...

[jpkeates]

There is some dispute about the right answer to this, but my current understanding is:

You can't serve notice at all during the fixed term (either as an individual or all acting together). You can only serve notice after the fixed term.

When you serve notice after the fixed...

[jpkeates]

Some wrongdoing may be stretching things, but the agents have messed up big time.

As far as I can tell, the final tenancy contains only two people as joint tenants. If there is a deposit for that tenancy, the previous tenants have no claim against it, and should try and recover the money...

[jpkeates]

Not necessarily.
It being there doesn't make it something the landlord has to replace or maintain.

What does the tenancy agreement say about what is being rented and what does it say about white goods/fridges?

[jpkeates]

A landlord's notice can't bring the tenancy to an end.
When the tenant leaves, that's a surrender of the tenancy which brings the tenancy to an end.

We can't infer a causal relationship to make the deregulation act make sense.

Where do you stop?
Tenant digs up garden,...

[jpkeates]

Hammersmith & Fulham v Monk 1990 is the source that one of the joint tenants in a periodic tenancy can give notice that ends the tenancy for all of the joint tenants. Otherwise the contract could be endless, which can't have been the tenant's intention when signing. That decision hasn't been extended...

[jpkeates]

There is a problem with my view.
You could argue that the agent, in this case, is supplying a service in exchange for the fees - so they're as bound by the contract as the landlord. So there's no inbalance of obligations, so the contract is fair.
Unlike the Foxtons case, where there were...

[jpkeates]

Contracts can't last forever, so there has to be some way of bringing it to an end.
It might be worth pointing that out to the agent during your discussions.

They might claim that the contract only lasts as long as the tenancy does, but that isn't knowable.

The issue...

[jpkeates]

There's not much real life experience, but I'd presume that the redemption penalty is a finance cost and therefore subject to the same restriction on relief as interest.

[jpkeates]

You can't keep a deposit because you're inclined to.
The deposit is the tenant's money and you can claim against it as compensation for a loss beyond fair wear and tear.
You can't claim against it for breach of contract terms - only for the loss arising from that breach (four lots of wear...

[jpkeates]

Tenants should almost never withhold rent.
The element of rent you could ascribe to a fridge is so trivial it's not worth considering.

Assuming the property isn't let furnished, what does the tenancy agreement say about the fridge (or white goods in general).
White goods are...

[jpkeates]

How long is a piece of string?
The legal costs will be very different in different parts of the country.

As above, though, the main issue is likely to be a defence of disrepair.
Before serving notice, inspect the condition of the property and seek confirmation that there are...

[jpkeates]

The chances of claiming a penalty are remote.

The change of tenant process is almost impossible to get right - the agent is essentially taking a huge short cut, as assigning a joint tenancy is really very hard to get right.

The idea that you can "buy" a share of a...

[jpkeates]

"as a result of the service of a notice under section 21 the tenancy is brought to an end before the end of a period of the tenancy,"

I don't see it because of "as a result", which means (as far as I can tell) that the end of the tenancy has to arise because of the s21...

[jpkeates]

To be honest, at this point, you might be better off seeing what you and your landlord can agree.

The legal position is fixed and not very flexible.
You can leave on the 20th without the landlord's agreement (so it's entirely in your court).
But to do that you'd have to give...

[jpkeates]

The extra "s" on your name probably isn't enough for the notice to be invalid. It's obviously meant for you, and you know that it is, so the spelling isn't critical.

The rent issue is quite common with s21 notices. Unless your tenancy agreement is very specific (and I've never...