If you are renting a house or flat in the UK, there are several things that your landlord is not allowed to do according to tenancy law. These include entering the property without permission, raising rent without justification and carrying out illegal eviction procedures.
Your rights as a tenant in the UK also include having access to certain documents related to your home. If you request this information from your landlord, they must provide it within 28 days. This includes copies of gas safety certificates, reports on how energy-efficient the home is and any brochures which provide information on fire safety. If you think your rights as a tenant is violated, you can consider consulting a tenant lawyer.
Rights as a Tenant in the UK
Below you can find more details about what exactly your rights are as a tenant in the UK:
A right not to be illegally evicted by your landlord
Your landlord cannot evict you from a property without following the legal eviction procedures. This means they must have a court order, usually known as an eviction notice. In most cases, this notice will be valid for eight to fourteen days, and it must include information on why your landlord wants you to leave the property. If the eviction notice is not reasonable, you do not legally need to go and remain in the home until your tenancy comes to an end.
It is also illegal for your landlord to attempt any ‘self-help’ measure, such as changing the locks on your home without an eviction notice. If your landlord does use self-help methods, they could potentially face criminal charges or civil proceedings later.
Your right to stay in a property until your tenancy expires
Whenever you rent a new home, your landlord must give you what is known as an ‘assured shorthold tenancy agreement’. This document runs typically for six months, but it can be ended any time after this point with two months’ notice from either party (so four weeks’ notice if that month’s rent payment would terminate before the sixth of the month). When this tenancy agreement ends, you will not need to leave the property and continue renting it on rolling monthly terms. Your landlord cannot force you out of property once your assured shorthold tenancy agreement has ended.
Your landlord may attempt to force you out of a property by using a section 21 notice, also known as a ‘no-fault eviction notice’. This kind of document gives them the right to evict you from home if they don’t have any contractual grounds for doing so. Still, it cannot be used within the first six months of your tenancy agreement unless there is a reason, such as rent arrears or damage to the property for which you are responsible. However, once this six-month period comes to an end, then your landlord can use a section 21 notice at any time with no justification required.
A right to refuse unreasonable rent increases
If you are renting from a private landlord and want to increase your monthly rent, they must give you three months’ notice of this change. Only one month’s notice will be required if the increase is less than 20% of the original monthly rent amount. However, you are not obligated to agree to a rent increase, and you can refuse it if you wish. If you do disagree, then your landlord cannot force these changes upon you, but they could end up taking them to a court or serving another eviction notice without any reason or justification for doing so.
A right to repairs and maintenance
Your landlord is responsible for ensuring that any property you live in is fit to be lived in, and they must also ensure that all the necessary repairs and maintenance are carried out. If they fail to do this, you can write them a letter, known as a ‘repair request notice’, asking them to fix the issue. They will then have fourteen days to respond to your repair request with proof of action taken or explain why it cannot be restored. In serious cases where there is a risk of injury, your landlord may not have fourteen days before being forced by law to take action, so you should check what kind of proof they need before sending them a letter.
You are right to have guests
If there is no clause in your tenancy agreement that prohibits you from having guests, you are free to allow them to stay for any length of time provided that they do not cause damage or use up resources such as electricity and water that you pay for. However, if your landlord adds a clause into your tenancy agreement saying that it is forbidden to have guests staying overnight, you must abide by this rule if you want to avoid eviction proceedings.
A right to live peacefully
Your landlord can try to evict you if they believe that you have breached the terms of your tenancy agreement, but only under certain conditions. For example, landlords cannot use eviction notices against tenants who are behind with rent payments or simply want to carry out renovation work, but they must prove that these issues have occurred for this not to be agreed upon.
However, fundamental breaches such as damaging property or causing a nuisance to other residents are considered ‘summary grounds’ by law. They allow your landlord to apply for an eviction order immediately without having to prove any wrongdoing on your part.
Your right to complain about problems in your home
It is important that you remind yourself of the rights mentioned in this article before taking any complaints about repairs and maintenance further. For example, if you complain to your landlord about problems with the condition of your home, they are not obliged to carry out any repairs until you have written a letter asking them to do so. You must give them at least fourteen days before deciding whether or not to take legal action against them, but this number should be increased to ensure that there is no risk of eviction.
Your right to own pets
If you are thinking about bringing a pet into your rental property, you should first check with your landlord their policy on animals. Many landlords have a ‘no pets’ policy that you will have agreed to when signing your tenancy agreement, so you should check the terms before further action.
This is because if they do not allow pets, then you cannot insist on keeping one as this will change the conditions of your agreement and could lead to them using eviction notices against you. If they let tenants keep pets then there should be no problems with having a pet provided that their size or behavior does not cause a disturbance to anyone else living in the property or surrounding area.
Conclusion
While the information provided in this article is mainly focused on UK tenants, it can be applied to any other country with little to no changes. Speak to an expert for more detailed advice if you are unsure about your rights or what you should do in a specific situation.