landlord charged after tenants moved out ???

[x9200]

- Landlord's flat is dumping 10,000 gallons of water a day into the homes below. Tenant is away. Yet we have to wait until they return from their months holiday to legally gain access?

Clearly the latter makes no sense.

In most of the modern judicial system you have instruments allowing to violate the law if a "higher" public value is endangered. So if there is a fire, flood, human life or health at high risk it has priority. The right of privacy and peaceful enjoyment is of lower value than potential, high likelihood damage done to few appartments. That's why you can damage car's door trying to rescue a driver inside the car if accident happens, or smash the window trying to help an unconscious person inside a flat. If water is coming from the apartment and you enter it I don't think you would be held responsible especially if you are the owner of this apartment and have the keys.

[Beeroclock]

Lets get back to where it started:
JR8:The landlord has a right to enter at reasonable times, having given reasonable notice. He does not need permission to enter his own property (although such things might be considered polite).

Could you please direct me to a British / Singapore law that states this right? I am not saying there is no such law and I am absolutely correct but I would just like to see some quality arguments based on something more then somebodies opinion.

An indirect argument from my side: if such law existed you wouldn't need all this clauses in all typical TAs you can find around.

x9200, here's some info for NSW, Australia, which seems quite a comprehensive/thorough framework on various scenarios and the need for consent and/or notice for LL to access.... It is not the Law, but claims to be a legal guide albeit from a tenant's advocacy organization.

http://www.tenants.org.au/factsheet-08- ... nd-privacy

[JR8]

@JR, your experience as a LL is probably not better than my experience as a tenant and a consumer if this comes to the number of legally sensitive encounters. You don't work as a professional legal consultant or something over this line, do you?

>‘I’ve been a landlord for well over 100+ unit/years. A provider of these services, via a business that needs to understand the rules (I pay a managing agent to do it for me).
How long have you been a tenant, and fully up to date with these ever shifting laws?


@Could you please direct me to a British / Singapore law that states this right? I am not saying there is no such law and I am absolutely correct but I would just like to see some quality arguments based on something more then somebodies opinion.

>If you think it’s just ‘somebodies opinion’, then the dialogue is finished, as it is apparently pointless. Maybe start with L+T 1985/1987/1996, and refer to the www.landlords.org.uk website...


Your quotes...
'Unjustifiable', 'not satisfactory'. Yes, that's all you need to know, as to how it is toothless.

[x9200]

@JR, your experience as a LL is probably not better than my experience as a tenant and a consumer if this comes to the number of legally sensitive encounters. You don't work as a professional legal consultant or something over this line, do you?

>‘I’ve been a landlord for well over 100+ unit/years. A provider of these services, via a business that needs to understand the rules (I pay a managing agent to do it for me).
How long have you been a tenant, and fully up to date with these ever shifting laws?

@Could you please direct me to a British / Singapore law that states this right? I am not saying there is no such law and I am absolutely correct but I would just like to see some quality arguments based on something more then somebodies opinion.

>If you think it’s just ‘somebodies opinion’, then the dialogue is finished, as it is apparently pointless. Maybe start with L+T 1985/1987/1996, and refer to the www.landlords.org.uk website...


Your quotes...
'Unjustifiable', 'not satisfactory'. Yes, that's all you need to know, as to how it is toothless.

If you can not be specific then it is pointless indeed but I still feel I will have to interfere with some baseless claims and sabre-rattling sweeping statements in such discussions in future so you may chose to ignore me.

@Beerocklock, thanks, same thing - if it exists then it is very specific. It has to override the general law that forbids the LL to enter.

[korrpui]

As a landlord in the UK as well, I second JR8's comments so far.

You can see the Citizen Advice Beareau here on the LL right to entry: http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/hou ... s_of_entry

In any case, withholding the final rent payment is a breach of any tenancy agreement. There is an independent body to hold tenant's deposit for arbitration if needed; now mandatory for LLs to register the tenant's deposit with such bodies.

Tenants have more rights in the UK. Absolutely zero in the UK. Half makes me want to become a LL in SG....

[x9200]

As a landlord in the UK as well, I second JR8's comments so far.

You can see the Citizen Advice Beareau here on the LL right to entry: http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/hou ... s_of_entry

The link above says it is conditional. I did not say anything different.

[JR8]

The link above says it is conditional. I did not say anything different.

I'm not sure most people will understand what that means. Could you clarify.

[x9200]

Your statement that triggered my response was this one (already mentioned but for the clarity once again):
The landlord has a right to enter at reasonable times, having given reasonable notice. He does not need permission to enter his own property (although such things might be considered polite).

Particularly, what is in the bold face is what I object as you put it this way that it sounds like an absolute right. IMHO it is not. I quoted statues proving otherwise. Whether the LL can enter his property (longer term) occupied by someone is a subject to:
a) circumstances (this is the condition(al) part) or
b) permission from the occupier

If there is no valid reason, it can not be entered without the permission.
In the korrpui's link nobody says the LL has unconditional right of entry. Just opposite, it says that there has to be a reason (a condition) justifying his entry. One of the the reasons (conditions) given is an emergency. Of course it could be subjective but for many case it will be pretty clear. E.g. the LL can not enter because he would like to watch just today the sunset but surely he can if water leaks out below the door frame.

Also in the OP post there was nothing allowing any speculation whether his LL had such good reason to enter or not. If in his TA it was said that he could enter after giving a notice or even without and he fulfilled this requirement, then this was fine and he had the right to do it. If not, and he had no right (I understood this was no emergency/maintenance etc. situation). In that sense your statement had no ground as we simply didn't know enough about the circumstances.

[JR8]

Ah I see, thanks, the perils of trying to summarise law, a bag of legal potatoes can get morphed into potato's

Revised version: ...
‘The landlord has a right to enter at reasonable times, having given reasonable notice. [However], he does not always [?] need permission to enter his own property’.

I thought the inclusion of the reasonableness-factors had made it clear it wasn’t an absolute right to saunter in and out when ever he wished to.

The trouble is a landlord can make up a valid reason, or mistakenly believe they have one:
- Water is leaking into the unit below you
or
- He needs a valuation for a re-mortgage., etc. etc.

I once had a landlord (the freeholder of that leasehold building of flats) visit my unit, to carry out an inspection prior to us taking him to court. He did that as he was fishing for any breaches of the lease, to use against us, and also to intimidate us (he was a *really* nasty piece of work). There was nothing we could do to stop him.

Another time I had a landlord’s managing agent, together with their plumber, give a days notice regarding a leak from my flat into the unit below. They dismantled the side of the bath, and took up some floorboards (which I was left to make-good and repair). Nothing found. It turned out the water was coming from the unit above me, by-passing (i.e. water wasn’t visible) my unit, and emerging probably via a stud-partition wall, into the unit below. That was a close call as they were threatening to take up all the floor tiling too. Actually I’ve encountered this precise situation twice now, and have learned that water can move in the weirdest ways, example: water can readily cross a room, or more, from the point of a leak, bypass the unit below, and emerge on the other side of the unit below that. It can be quite a nightmare scenario, being the unit-owner above another where a leak is emerging.