The Lemon Fool

DiamondEcho wrote:Maybe that is your experience. My experience via the letting agent I use is that the agent's T+Cs suggest that tenant's/landlords etc before signing any contract, that if they are at all unclear on any of the terms, they seek professional legal guidance beforehand.

They all say that (and from the landlord's side it may very well be true).

But I don't think I've yet met any agent who will do business with a prospective tenant who tries to insist on it.

DiamondEcho wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Irrelevant. You sign the tenancy on first sight and under pressure[1], or you don't get the tenancy and end up in the kind of position that gave rise to this thread.
[1] Not just the pressure of the moment, but also circumstances like having made arrangements to move and given (or been served) notice to vacate your previous home.

Maybe that is your experience. My experience via the letting agent I use is that the agent's T+Cs suggest that tenant's/landlords etc before signing any contract, that if they are at all unclear on any of the terms, they seek professional legal guidance beforehand.

You're talking about a Tenancy Agreement here, not a potential tenant's contract with the agent for services, which is the topic of the thread.** As I said near the start of the thread we had no problem with the Landlord or the Tenancy Agreement which we hadn't even seen yet. I suggest we get back on topic.


GS
[**OT. I'm pretty sure it's a statutory duty for agents to warn parties to a property contract to seek legal advice before signing.]

UncleEbenezer wrote:

DiamondEcho wrote: Maybe that is your experience. My experience via the letting agent I use is that the agent's T+Cs suggest that tenant's/landlords etc before signing any contract, that if they are at all unclear on any of the terms, they seek professional legal guidance beforehand.

They all say that (and from the landlord's side it may very well be true). But I don't think I've yet met any agent who will do business with a prospective tenant who tries to insist on it.

If the agent didn't state that, there's an avenue for him to look in to, as I believe they have to in order for the associated contract entered in to to be valid. AIU if the contract did state that but a party to the contract 'felt pressured' into signing it, then there might be a case that the contract is hence invalid.
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GoSeigen wrote:You're talking about a Tenancy Agreement here, not a potential tenant's contract with the agent for services, which is the topic of the thread.** As I said near the start of the thread we had no problem with the Landlord or the Tenancy Agreement which we hadn't even seen yet. I suggest we get back on topic.
[**OT. I'm pretty sure it's a statutory duty for agents to warn parties to a property contract to seek legal advice before signing.]

In my experience a tenant signs the tenant><agent contract, and separately signs the Tenancy Agreement. The landlord signs the LL><agent contract, and either the landlord or the agent ('on behalf of') signs the Tenancy Agreement.

GoSeigen wrote:[**OT. I'm pretty sure it's a statutory duty for agents to warn parties to a property contract to seek legal advice before signing.]

That's very much on-topic! IME all contracts I've entered in to in recent years have come with the above^ clause, and you have to sign off that you understand that; ie if you feel at all uncertain on the terms you will take legal advice. And the agent keeps a copy of that so as to cover their exposure against future claims/action. Are you suggesting you didn't sign-off such a thing?

Maybe the excess charges are going to be a thing of the past. From the BBC

Raptor.

Raptor wrote:Maybe the excess charges are going to be a thing of the past. From the BBC

Raptor.

That article is primarily about leasehold reform. Something that governments have been trying for a long time: Mrs T legislated in 1985 and again in 1987, and others have been there since then. John Major in (I think) 1992 was probably the least ineffectual measure, but it's always been thwarted by vested interests more powerful than elected politicians getting their loopholes into the law, and institutional corruption in the judiciary.

The confusion of leasehold and lettings in our law, as reflected by the BBC article flitting more-or-less randomly between the two, doesn't help.

I took advantage of leasehold reform, in 1967, to buy the freehold of the house which we then owned. I think I paid about 20 times the Annual Ground Rent.

TJH

UncleEbenezer wrote:The confusion of leasehold and lettings in our law, as reflected by the BBC article flitting more-or-less randomly between the two, doesn't help.

I don't think the confusion is in the law but in English usage. The freeholder/leaseholder relationship is one between a 'landlord' and a 'tenant' but we use the same pair of terms for the roles in the relationship between the entity letting out a property and the entity renting it. Correct interpretation of those terms depends on context and it's often the case that journos fail to make the different usages sufficiently explicit - especially if slamming together statements derived from players in the two different domains who would be using the terms in their own domain-specific context.

As someone letting out a leasehold flat I'd have one hat as tenant of the landlord and another hat as landlord of the person to whom I am letting.

Cheers