Advice: evict her nonpaying bumpkin…
All you need is an "agent's" signature. Since the leasing agent was working in the capacity, the lease is valid. She is giving you the run around. Evict her. You probably won't see the money back.
The lesson learned is to be cold and calloused when it comes to nonpaying tenants. Two weeks nonpayment= eviction. You simply cannot afford not to be. If you are lenient, you will get abused as you now know.
If you issued the tenancy agreement then you don't need to sign it as the landlord simply because you typed it up and issued it.
If you bought a generalised contract from a stationers then you might be in a bit of a problem as you have no legal contract with her as you never signed it.
However that can work to your advantage too - you can claim that since you never signed a contract with her, there is no valid contract and then you can evict her and throw her out on her bum within a month or two.
Best to get rid of these council estate types from your property, they are all crooks who will destroy your place before they leave. Get her out as quickly as you can even if it means you lose some rent.
I would suggest that you ask this question again on this forum. There are experts there who will ask you a lot of questions but they will try to help.
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/for...
We have a tenant in our house who went from being employed to being on benefits. Being understanding, we allowed her to stay and agreed that she could pay some rent and the government would pay the rest. Two months have passed with stories of how her application was being processed and the rent would be back-paid. We have been understating and patient. For reasons best know to herself, it subsequently transpires that she has not even applied for housing benefits and has informed us that not only can we not evict her, but that she has sought legal advice and that because the landlord's signature is not on the tendency agreement ( a person, not company, that we pay as a letting agent singed on our behalf) the contract is 'invalid' and she requires a new contract in order for her rent to be back paid. Please may somebody who knows advise us whether or not the contract is invalid if not signed by the owner of the property? We are regular working-class people who are now in debt due to our tenants behaviour. Any other advice of what we should do from this point onwards in terms of evicting and/or reclaiming the owed rent would be hugely beneficial. If you could possibly make reference to the legal policy that you are referring to this would help immensely. The propery is in England so subject to English-UK law. Thank you
