Breaching Tenancy Agreements

What happens when a Tenancy Agreement is breached?

When you rent a property you must comply with the terms within the Tenancy Agreement once signed. This could mean if the agreement states you must not be a nuisance or an annoyance to the landlord or the other tenants, but then the landlord receives a complaint from the other tenants because of noise, the landlord has the right to bring your agreement to an end.

Breaching the Tenancy Agreement can be done through many ways, including failure to pay rent, damage to the property or harassing other tenants or the landlord, participating in illegal activities in the property. It all depends on the terms within that individual agreement.

Not only can the tenant breach the agreement, but the landlord can do so as well. This can be done if the landlord enters the property for an unimportant reason without giving the tenant notice, this can also be done if the landlord refuses to carry out any repairs to the property. Again, it all depends on the terms within that individual agreement.

But what happens when the terms are breached?

Well, when the landlord wants to evict a tenant, he/she will receive a Possession Order from the court in order to carry out this action once requested, however the landlord must give the tenant notice. If the landlord breaches the Tenancy Agreement by not giving the tenant notice, then the tenant can sue the landlord and the court can refuse to grant their request for a Possession Order.

When the tenant wants to notify the landlord that the landlord is breaching a term, the tenant can go and speak to the landlord directly about it or the landlord’s agent. If the landlord then fails to act upon their complaint or change their actions to ensure they are not breaching the agreement, then the tenant has the right to go to court. The tenant must provide evidence to the court of the breach in order for the court to decide the importance of the breach or how serious it is, for them then to decide what happens next, and vice versa when a landlord wants to report the tenant.

Author: Miss Charlotte Hunt