Our tenants (we live in accommodation provided by my employer and rent out our house whilst we are here – don’t worry, I’m not a buy to let monster) have split up and the bloke has applied to keep the tenancy and have her name taken off the lease. Shame for them – two kids under 3 yr old.

As part of the application he has declared to the (useless money grabbing arsehole) agents that he has been self employed for the last couple of years rather than the paye employed status he was when they moved in. A quick search of company house records shows he does indeed have a ltd business (yacht cleaning and maintenance) and it and all 3 of its ‘directors’ are registered at our house since 2017.

Should we be concerned? If they went bust or racked up debts would there be any repercussions for us? It might be that his current self declared income (take home is only 160% of the monthly rental) and new single status with two kids living elsewhere might be more of a problem.

It’s his debt, not the houses debt.
The only hassle, as with any tenant who doesn’t pay a bill or debt, may be some letters asking for money or at worst debt collection agents calling round.
They can’t touch you though.

Well, you’re the landlord. Most residential tenancy agreements exclude business use without express permission. What does your agreement/contract say?

With regards liability if his business goes tits-up, he is a tenant so cannot use your property as collateral so other than potentially having the address of your property on debt records in the future which could cause you problems I wouldn’t have thought you have too much to worry about.

Get proper legal advise and change your agents by the sounds of it.

It’s his debt

More likely it’s the Ltd Co’s debt. Isn’t that the point of a Ltd Co?

If he’s cleaning boats for a living then there should be naff all business debt anyway (i’m assuming “maintenance” is more cleaning as boat engineers don’t tend to also clean them)

Well, you’re the landlord. Most residential tenancy agreements exclude business use without express permission. What does your agreement/contract say?

Unless the house overlooks the ocean I’m guessing he is doing the paperwork at home not cleaning the yachts 😉

You would gave to be particularly grumpy to boot somebody out for needing a business address.

There’s no fundamental problem, it does sound slightly odd though that the other directors have also given your address as theirs. I know the rules changed a while back and It’s quite common for directors to list the business address but if that was one person’s home it would strike me as odd.

Personally I’d be more worried about the ability to pay the rent if a post Brexit world meant fewer people could afford to have their boats professionally cleaned?

The people who can afford boats big enough that they need someone else to clean them, aren’t likely to be too badly affected by Brexit

Because Companies House has woken up to the identity fraud problem of lots of personal info in the public domain … If he moves out you cannot get those Companies House addresses changed easily (except maybe with a court order) without his cooperation.

IMO if he is a risk of default in the future you need to get him to do it and now. If you have to evict him it will be an even bigger nightmare.

As for the two directors who I assume are not living there they have no business using your address as a service address without your consent. They have no legal connection to that address and I’d argue no legitimate argument for being registered there.

If it were me I would say that I wouldn’t even contemplate renewing / the application until that was all done and the registered office and directors were all moved to an appropriate location (a registered office/service address service is provided quite cheaply by many smaller accounting and legal firms). For suppliers it’s a bit different as he needs to get invoices so as a trading address personally I might be more flexible (but it’s not my house here).

I would also get the tenancy agreement to explicitly exclude any other person using that address for business correspondence.

We moved into a property that a self employed business (that was still running) had been run from and it was about 3 years before all the supplier post stopped. It took at least a year for the final deliveries to stop. Luckily our vendor was helpful as it was impacting him.

IANAL.

@mashr if it’s small scale mobile hull cleaning services there will be plenty of less than wealthy boaters using those. The marine industry has never been known for its economic stability.

There won’t be any liability issues for you as the landlord. But the address will be publicly associated with the buisness. That means, creditors, customers ect potentially turning up long after your tenants have gone.
Info here.
https://www.i-support-business.co.uk/home/news/news/6/what+address+do+i+use+for+the+registered+office+of+my+limited+company.