Hi all,
I have recently got into a complex situation/dispute with my Landlord.
I am renting this flat for last two years. We entered on AST agreement of 6 months initially and renewed our contract 3 times. It is actually a mid-terrace house, converted into two flats. I entered into upper floor flat with a term that my rent will be inclusive of council tax. Everything run smooth till November last year, when a council inspector visited our house. It turned-out that our house was never declared as two flats with council and only one set of council tax was being paid by the tenants living downstairs. I did explained that I had an agreement with my landlord about council tax inclusive in the rent.
But last month I received a letter from Valuation agency, followed by huge council tax bill of £3K from local council.
Interestingly, council send me this bill for last two and half years i.e. six months prior to the date I moved into this property.
Now when I chased my landlord, leaving several messages, voice mails and telephone calls, he eventually turned up and shrugged off his shoulders that he is not responsible for any council tax payment.
Here, my biggest mistake: As I mentioned that I had in total four contracts with him, but never bothered reading my contract properly that he never mentioned that council tax is inclusive of rent.
So Mr. Landlord has now put all council tax responsibility on me. I did made him an offer to lets split it 50 50 cause, its both of our mistake. But you know...
So, I have wrote a letter to local council explaining this situation, but have not heard anything yet.
My rent was due last week, and I have held my rent payment till I receive any update from Council. My landlord is now threatening me that I should pay my rent+the late fee as mentioned in the contract. Otherwise, he will evict me for the reason of rent arrears. And by the way our AST contract time has finished and now we are in periodic tenancy.
Also, while I was searching for information, I came across about DPS condition. Since I never received any such info by my landlord, I did some investigation. I now got written confirmation from all three bodies i.e. DPS, Mydeposits and TDS that our deposit was never protected, in the first place, neither after any re-contracting.
Lastly, my landlord is also threatening that I breached my contract by subletting the property. I had my brother-in-law living with us (left us around 5 months ago) and landlord knew this from day one cause, the flat was actually found by my brother in law. But because, contract is on mine and my wife’s name, landlord is now saying that he don’t know about my brother in law and I never took any written permission from him staying in this flat.
I know have gone into a big stress, while we've got two years old daughter and my wife is 8 months pregnant.
Can someone tell, what are my options to deal with this situation.
And apologies for this rather very long post.
Thanks in advance,