Informal lettings of rooms- what rights does L have?

[n222yan]

Hi there, my situation is this.

I have a house which has each room rented out. It has three rooms, i originally lived in one of the rooms and rented out the other two, but then my job required me to live there, i no longer have that job so need to go back into my house.

The people in the house were basically just giving me money to stay in the room, there was no agreements or no contracts, all i asked was half a months rent deposit and a month in advance.

Now i am trying to find out what rights they actually have ? mainly what is the minimum term i have to give them to evict them? I contacted them and told them they have 5 weeks, and they said this was not legal and not sufficent time... However my employment has come to an end and i have no where else to live so must get them out asap. I dont want to chuck them out on the street hence why i said 5 weeks to find somewhere.

I figured 5 weeks was sufficent and that fact that we have no writen agreement as they were brought in as lodgers basically.

Please get back asap as the process has already started!

Kind regards,

[jta]

By allowing the tenants to have the house without you living there, you have upgraded their status from lodgers to Assured Tenants. That gives them a lot more rights.

Start by giving us a bit more info.

How long have they been living there?
Is the rent paid up to date?
Did you do an inventory when you moved out?
Where is the deposit money now?

Once we have that info. we can be a bit more specific, but they are right in that 5 weeks notice is too short.

[Poppy]

Just to expand on jta's questions, on what date did you cease to live at that property?

[n222yan]

left the house almost 9 month ago.

they all pay the rent on time and there deposits is in my bank account...

one has been living there for 9 months, one for about 11 and one for about 4-5 months.

no inventory, but house is furnished, thats everything including the beds they sleep on.

all they got is there clothes, and maybe a tv. but the rooms did have tvs also.

[Poppy]

Sounds to me that these people are tenants on assured shorthold tenancy agreements (AST). You also need to protect their deposits through a scheme right now. Are there gas appliances at this property?

If you want the tenants to vacate, you will need to start by issuing a section 21 notice.