Wales rule change questions for July 2022?

Wales rule change questions for July 2022?

9:43 AM, 22nd February 2022, About 2 years ago 6

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I had been looking over the new model contracts under the new rules and was surprised that there were no fundamental or supplemental terms relating to agents or interest on late rent payments.

I made enquiries and interest on late rent payments are an additional term agreed between landlord and contract holders. This surprised me as under the tenants’ fee rules there is a limit to interest chargeable, which I would have thought would be a fundamental term.

The other issue was no mention of agents, which apparently can be added as an additional term.

However, this was quoted: “The Act says that ‘the landlord, in relation to an occupation contract, is the person that is (or purports to be) entitled to confer on an individual a right to occupy the dwelling as a home’ and that ‘each person with whom a landlord makes an occupation contract is a contract-holder under the occupation contract’ ”

So if a landlord hands over full management to the agent, the agent then has the decision on whom to rent the property to, so the agent is “entitled to infer a right to occupy” so under the above definition, does the agent become the landlord?

Many thanks

Chris


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Comments

akhan

11:57 AM, 22nd February 2022, About 2 years ago

The Landlord would be the persons who would have ultimate control to grant a lease tenancy under the Act.
At all materials times the agent does not become a landlord as he does not have ultimate control to grant a lease in estate over the land.

In his authority he would require consent from the landlord and therefore acting in his capacity as mere agent of the principle Landlord.

Hope this help to clarify your concerns.

Please note, there is a lot of case law that you can obtain from Nexus lexis that will guide you to the correct answers.

Chris Bradley

12:21 PM, 22nd February 2022, About 2 years ago

This is a new law within Wales which has yet to be interpreted.

As the model agreements make no mention of agents, and in some previous tenancy documents issued by agents there as been no mention of the landlord details at all.

If the landlord has handed over full management rights under the way the NEW law is written the agent could well become the landlord

Dylan Morris

13:24 PM, 22nd February 2022, About 2 years ago

Are these new model contracts compulsory or can the landlord still use their own bespoke tenancy agreement ?

Chris Bradley

7:43 AM, 26th February 2022, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 22/02/2022 - 13:24The model contracts are optional, but you must replace the word tenant with contract-holder and it says that although you can use your own terms, you cannot alter the wording for fundamental terms, but you can alter the wording of supplementary or additional terms, but you should include the original wording and cross out what you have changed, and any changes must not alter the meaning of the original wording.
There is going to be a seperate guide which explains what each term means in plain words
I've spent over 40hours going through the model contracts and trying to make it more easily understood for both landlord and contract-holder

I have a headache now as it's still very messy

Dylan Morris

11:01 AM, 26th February 2022, About 2 years ago

So they’re making it so difficult with many ways to trip you up that most landlords will probably use the model tenancy I guess. What a disgrace.

Chris Bradley

14:27 PM, 26th February 2022, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 26/02/2022 - 11:01
The model tenancy misses a lot of things out, eg. Interest charges on late rental(as stipulated in the tenants fee act) I asked why it wasn't included and was told that the interest payment is an optional charge, that landlords can add to the model agreement. But if it's not there then it can't be charged.

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