unwanted tenant!

[Plusabit]

Tenant moves in to property with girlfriend both on tenancy agreement. Girlfriend moves out after 3 days but tenant pays full rent for 3 months, girls goes into agents office and says original chap has dissappeared but she has been paying him half the rent and wants to know her position, no rent paid for this last month, and no contact from original tenant. she is not on the agreement. agent has said she must go. My question is, if she refuses will the landlord (work mate) have to go to the courts to get her out, or can the agent have the locks changed, without notice?

[Ericthelobster]

Tenant moves in to property with girlfriend both on tenancy agreement....
....she is not on the agreement. agent has said she must go.
I'm confused - is the girlfriend named on the original agreement or not?!

[Plusabit]

appologies, tenant moved in with girlfriend, girlfriend moved out after 3 days, NEW "friend" moved in, but tenant has now disappeared and "friend" who is not on agreement is there.

[Dan]

I would say that the tenant who disappeared is still responsible for the agreement and the rent. I don't believe that the agent can change the locks and the LL will have to issue a Setion 8 notice against the disappeared tenant when the rent is sufficiently in arrears. Once repossesion has been granted through the courts then "new friend" will have to leave.

[P.Pilcher]

The current resident has no rights IMHO and should be asked to leave as soon as possible. You then run the risk of taking back your property and having one of the former tenants reappearing on the scene and claim unlawful eviction. If however they have definitely left and the current resident is obstinate, one way forward would be to serve a section 8 notice on the tenants at the address of the premises. Do it twice, using different post offices and get receipts for postage in each case. As they have left, they will not be there to dispute that they are not quite in arrears for two months which you will claim. After two weeks you can then go to court and as the claim will not be contested, get your possession order then use bailiffs to evict the "squatter". In the mean time, do not accept "rent" from the "squatter" as she isn't your tenant and to do so will immediately grant her an AST!

I look forward to reading what our board experts have to say on this one.

P.P.

[Paul_f]

The current occupant is indeed a trespasser and there is no point in serving any notice on anyone other than to tell the current incumbent they have no right to be there and that you will take action to have them removed if they don't remove themselves. As the rent has been paid for 3 months then that helps fiancially in the short term. You can apply to have the current occupant evicted and I believe it takes about 5 days but I'm afraid I don't know the full procedure as I haven't my legal books with me at home. Perhaps the police might help but don't count on it!