UK Landlord Forum / Life

So I hope someone can offer me advice.

I had a second look at my contract and noticed that the company, listed as the landlord is dissolved.
I signed the contract in september 2023 and the company was dissolved in january 2023.

Is the contract a valid contract ?

Note: I rented the house through an agency.

It takes a lot to make a whole agreement "invalid". So, probably not.

You're living in a property and paying rent, so there's some kind of tenancy, and you've been given a set of terms that you've agreed to, so there's no reason to think they're invalid. I'm not sure how the agreement being invalid would help you.

The landlord can correct that with a formal notice to you. But you could, quite reasonably, for example, claim a s21 notice isn't valid if one is sent without the landlord correcting the name on the agreement.

As hinted at, the answer to the question is less interesting than the reason for the question in the first place. If the answer is concluded to be "no" by various strangers on the Internet, then does that imply some form of action will be taken?

If a landlord's company is dissolved, the end of tenancy contract is usually still valid. The property might be handled by a new owner, such as a bank, or another landlord who will honor the agreement. Tenants should keep paying rent to the same place unless notified in writing. If unsure, tenants can contact the new landlord or a property manager for guidance.

In this case, the contract was signed after the company was dissolved, so there can't be a contract with that company at all, so there's nothing for a new owner to inherit or to have purchased. A dissolved company can't enter into a contract.

But the OP is living in a property and, presumably, paying rent, so there's a tenancy and some form of contract therefore exists, even if some of the details are unclear.

JPK is right that you can't have a contract with an entity that no longer exists.

You did not say whether the name of the Landlord in the Tenancy Agreement is the same name as the Agent?

Start by going to the Land Registry and pay £3 for the title deed to see who is the owner of the property (make sure you get the right title deed for the property), also check when they bought the property (sale dates usually shown on Zoopla and Right Move but not always up to date).

Then review the Tenancy Agreement to see if it has clauses that say what will happen in such an event.  For example it may say something like in the event of the company being dissolved that a Tenancy is created with the land owner or superior Landlord.  It may be that the property was sold and the Lease has provisions for that event.

What you have not mentioned is who you are paying the rent to, there are many dodgy agents who put the Tenancy in their name in an absurd attempt to help a Landlord avoid tax.

If you are paying rent to an account that is in the name of the Landlord then that simplifies things.

If you are absolutely sure that you are paying rent to a bank account in the name of the limited company that does not exist I would stop this immediately, but put the rent into a savings account until you have regularised issues.  I say this because in these circumstances the bank account could be frozen at any time, allegations could be made that you were not paying the rent, it is just too risky. 

Trust me when you do this a worm will come out of the woodwork, if a former Director of the company or agency contacts you then simply reply asking them in what capacity are they contacting you.  Do not elaborate, less is more, let them dig themselves into a hole.  Keep all contact to email, do not take calls and do not respond to voicemails. Evidence is everything.

In fact there may be an argument for you to go to your bank and ask for a recall of monies as you suspect you have been victim a scam because you have just discovered that the company that the account is in the name of does not exist. 

Obviously you should do some research on companies house, determine if there are other companies with same name, look at the company ownership details for the original company, look at the Directors, search the addresses for the company and for the Director, look for companies that have been created in a very similar name but perhaps a middle name added.

Also look at websites and contracts for the company number and check archive.org to see if company number on any of the website pages changed. 

A Tenancy will always exist because you are in occupation and you are paying rent, there will always be a beneficiary of the land, but it might take some legal action or some agreement between you and the land owner to sort things out properly, but you have rights so you might not want to sign anything new without legal advice.

The company no longer exists, so it can't assign the lease but a receiver could, so you need to dig down in the filings to see how it was dissolved, if they just let it be struck off due to lack of filings, it seems to me that sufficient time has passed so they are going to struggle.

As I said there may be provisions in the contract that cover this event and of course you need to make sure you are correct that the right company was dissolved.  I find that dodgy agents often already have companies they have prepped for transferring the business to.  They then change the name of their secondary company to that of the first, but this would not make it the same entity.

How you play this moving forward is up to you and depends on what your objective is,
stay in the property?
not have an increase in rent?
whether you actually want to leave?

I have helped a number of Tenants leverage these situations until things are legally rectified, for example when Directors of the former Agency tried to forcefully evict, the Police were called and 3 of 12 occupants remained. We responded with a formal Letter Before Action for a Deposit Protection Claim against the land owner, they then wrote back saying they were not the Landlord had nothing to do with the property (despite attending with the heavies and being on caught on video).

The next stunt was an attempt to increase the rent via S13, we filed against this, the rent was reduced because of loss of amenity from the original lease, the land owner appealed to the upper chamber, we responded that they had said they were not the Landlord and they were ruled out of matters and the decision upheld.

It is always going to depend on what you want, but based on what you have said, you seem to be in the driving seat.

Quote from: lexus250 on March 13, 2024, 07:25:13 PMSo I hope someone can offer me advice.

I had a second look at my contract and noticed that the company, listed as the landlord is dissolved.
I signed the contract in september 2023 and the company was dissolved in january 2023.

Is the contract a valid contract ?

Note: I rented the house through an agency.

Quote from: David on May 10, 2024, 09:41:56 AMThen review the Tenancy Agreement to see if it has clauses that say what will happen in such an event.  For example it may say something like in the event of the company being dissolved that a Tenancy is created with the land owner or superior Landlord.  It may be that the property was sold and the Lease has provisions for that event

I think a complication with that is that the  company was dissolved before the contract was signed, so the terms of the contract are probably academic.

One thing that has occurred to me is that it could just be a minor error, a similarly named company or the wrong company number. Lots of companies have variations on similar names.