Guaranteed Rental agency – Can’t get my property back after 3 years

I would seek legal advise from a solicitor
The good thing is rent is being paid monthly
Some sadly don’t get this and are in difficulty’s

Tessa Shepperson and her team at Landlord Law did some training, etc on this.

As you say, their simply serving S21 notices without court action will not achieve anything.

Hopefully, your agreement requires them to provide you details of the sub-tenants.
Also, documentation to confirm that their tenants were served with all relevant documents and are compliant in order for S21 to be served.

Assignment of the sub tenancies is an option, but you would not want this if you then had to rectify compliance issues, especially deposits.

Any scope for a sharp rent increase to focus their attention on vacating the property?

I’d definitely recommend professional help here. I’ve recently used Landlord Group (the principal Chris Sharpe is featured along with Paul Shamplina’s firm Landlord Action on Channel 5’s show Rogue Landlords Nightmare Tenants). Great service from Landlord Group and many reports of same about Landlord Action.
I’d steer clear of a local solicitor as you need a firm that handle evictions day in day out and know all the difficult situations etc.
Landlord Group were fantastic and took all the stress and hassle away (otherwise I’d probably have had a mental breakdown, tenant was massively in arrears, drug dealing etc).

Thanks for the replies. I was just concerned about going to any ordinary local solicitor - so it's good to get recommendations on specialists. I suspect the agency are canny operators and would know how to mess a local solicitor around and just drag things out.
The key issue for me here is that I don't have a typical rental agreement - it is more of a business agreement with the Guaranteed rental company.

Without seeing any of the documents, you could go Landlord action, I have not dealt with them so cannot comment, I have seen them on tv....
I would be temped to simply knock on the tenants door (send a letter) see if they are willing to have a chat to see the other side of the story for the full picture
It is not clear if you want the proprty back under your control empty or just back under your control, I would be consider terminating your business agreement with this inept company (imo) I find most letting agents are, and take it from there....

Google rent to rent scam to understand what the problems are. Also watch the video with David Smith of JRF solicitors.

I was involved in issues regarding rent to rent and went to Court the Barrister said the Solicitor would have probably been more successful in evicting the occupants as squatters. Take legal advice and mention this to Solicitor.

What is the exact wording in your agreement with the agency? Does it say that 'the tenancy continues until they can give vacant possession'? It does sound as though you have let the property to the agency effectively meaning that they are the landlord of the occupant.

The letting to the agency is more than likely a Common Law Tenancy and, providing that the fixed term has ended (which is why i asked about the wording of the term) you would be able to end this tenancy by giving a notice to quit.

I appreciate that this does not help you get VP so i am not suggesting you do this as step one.

Step one for you should be simply to get a copy of the signed AST between the agency and the occupant so that you can review the terms. Provided the agency has done everything correctly, i would suggest that, once you have the copy of the AST, you serve a notice to quit on the agency and determine their tenancy therefore becoming the occupiers landlord. This way you can deal with the section 21 notice yourself because that sounds like the problem.

Provided the agency has kept all of their documentation in order this is a pretty simple problem to solve and i have no idea why this hasnt been suggested to you before as a solution.

If you need some more guidance or help just respond to this and give me your email address and i will contact you. I can assure you it wont take me a further 3.5 years to get you VP!!

Thanks for all the help.
For now, we have agreed to renew for another 2 years (as we no longer need the property back right now).
They have increased the rent slightly and also made a back-dated payment for the increased rent as compensation.
We have also agreed on an addendum to the contract with much stricter wording and punitive clauses - if they don't return the property within 6 months.
We plan to bank the back payment and increased rent - in case we need to use it to pay for a solicitor or other professional services to get VP in the future.

Reply to the comment left by Harry66 at 31/05/2022 - 10:18
Good news well done.