Right, I live in a rental property. It is probably classed as a student property even though I and 2 of my 4 housemates are not students and work. – I don't know if this makes a difference but anyway. So the house is classed as an HMO.

Can any lawyer/solicitory bod tell me what rights I have with regards refusing entry to people?

The letting shop that we rent the property from want to show prospective new tenants around the house and want us to sign a new contract for the next academic year, even though our current contract runs from July 2009 – June 2010. We've been living in the house since September 2008.
We're not sure what we're doing yet beyond the summer.

– Do we have a right to refuse to re-sign a contract when our current one doesn't expire for about another 5 1/2 months? Can we refuse to let them show "prospective new tenants" around the property whilst we are there and our current contract is still valid?

Yes
No

The landlord has a right to reasonable access – so that is at a mutually convenient time. He cannot say – I will be coming round in an hour – he has to negotiate and you agree. You cannot refuse all access however.

ok righto, thanks. 🙂

depends, the landlord could give you however much notice to move out in June if you won't sign the new contract. So yes, he can't force you to sign a contract for next year, but he's well within his rights to terminate the existing one on June if you dont.

Landlords letting to students are almost inveriably scum IME (the exception being the nice old lady who was our landlord and made us cakes) and treat students as a cash cow.

A related question, our landlord has just put the house we put up for sale on the market, the estate agent has asked if they can take photos for marketing purposes. Can we say no? I'm happy to provide them with photos that I took when we first moved in without all our stuff in.

"Landlords letting to students are almost inveriably scum IME"..

Yes that's our experience as well funnily enough.

I'm a lawyer. First I'd need to know what state you are in.

again related question… we live in an HMO property and are students… what rights do we have against having a flat that leaks, is not wind tight and is damp and mouldy? rights to complain and claim money back?

Willy / thegibbonator – in any situation like this, you need to refer to the terms of your lease / tenancy agreement.

That should spell out access rights, repairing responsibilities etc. If the lease is complex or poorly worded, your local CAB should be able to help translate legalese jargon into english.

I'm the aforementioned – a student landlord 😀

I don't think I am scum, and I don't think my tenants think so, 2 out of four of my houses have just signed on for next academic year, with no coercion from me.

1) If you don't want to sign then don't, just don't expect to be offered to renew if you change your mind because he may well have offered it elsewhere.

2) You can refuse access – maybe not legally but in practise you can. Look at it this way, if I write to my tenant that I'm coming round in a week and they reply, no you can't (which is unreasonable) and I just walk in on the afore mentioned date then that's potentially harassment, landlords get in big trouble for this. But if you continued to be unreasonable then I would apply to the courts to gain legal access – then you would have to let me in.

It makes more sense to just be reasonable – yes they have the right, but they can't enforce the right without a court order (unless they want to risk being done for harassment – prison). So try and be reasonable otherwise any sensible landlord is going to come down on you with the full force of the law and make you wish you hadn't made everyone's life so difficult.

Willy ; leaky, damp, mouldy are all things you should get the local council housing people to help you with, if the landlord isn't getting his proverbial together. There is no excuse for disrepair.

Give him a chance first, like write and give him a reasonable time to sort it, then get the council in they are normally keen as mustard to try and f*ck a landlord over. A landlord was recently sued 20k for allowing a mould to continue in his property.

My bone is not really with student landlords, but with our letting agent.

They try to screw us over every year when we re-sign a contract, for an "admin fee" of £35-50 each (depending on if we sign in jan or feb). When I asked what this was for last year, they said (and I quote): "paper, photocopying.. things like that." Sorry but that doesn't add up to more than about 2 quid per person per year i shouldn't think and I don't think we should be having to pay for their admin. That is surely one of their costs that they have to allow for when deciding how much to charge out of the rent that gets paid to the house owner (/landlord).

And, as much as I understand that the landlord obviously wants the house to be filled, I don't want to sign a contract that won't start for almost 6 months, when a great deal could very easily change in my circumstances in those 6 months. I would be prepared to give an answer a month or two in advance of yes or no to whether or not i would like to renew my contract, but nearly 6 months in advance seems an unreasonable expectation.

and bomber, I'm in the U.K.

If the place is actually an HMO the Landlord has unlimited access into the communal areas and they are required to give notice if they wish to enter any of the bedrooms.

As for not cooperating with reasonable requests by the landlord or their agents well that's just being childish.

Gibbonator – I understand your beef. Agents are tosspots its money for nothing, not only do they charge you, they will be charging the landlord for new contracts too, they win both ways. I don't charge set up fee's I am 100% private.

Like I said if you don't want to sign you don't have too, but he will just rent it out from under you.

But none of this is relevant to the other part you asked about letting them look round. Try and limit it to times that suit you (like either when you are or are not there depending on your preference.) But not letting them look round is just going to get you in grief…

mk1fan – Member

If the place is actually an HMO the Landlord has unlimited access into the communal areas and they are required to give notice if they wish to enter any of the bedrooms.

Only if the tenants are on separate contracts – if they are on one joint contract it can still be a HMO but the landlord access thing is a bit more of a grey area.

I can't see how an HMO would work under a single joint tenancy agreement. I can see how it would work for students but even then why would a Landlord choose it over a 'normal' ASTA tenancy. Just seems to complicate matters. That's todays work sorted – reading lease types.