Over occupancy?!

[asto5]

Hi,

We've recently been asked to move house by our landlord, (long story, but essentially it's our decision).
There's 5 of us moving into a 9 bedroom house, but we have a year's contract for our old house.

Three questions:

1.) One of my mates was talking about asking one of his mates to live in one of the spare bedrooms, and we split the 5-man rent 6 ways. I'm massively against this. And so my question is; what does the letter of the law say about this? I.e what are the penalties if caught, etc.

2.) Should we be expecting a new, 6 month, contract?

3.) With this new contract, do we need to specify anything about not allowing any more tenants? In other words; our worry is that the landlord might let the other rooms out to "randomers". Eventhough he's told us it will just be us 5?

Thanks for any advice or links that you can provide.

[Ramsbottom]

1) Without knowing what the contract says I can't be sure of the answer, but it is highly likely that this is illegal. I'm not sure of the penalties but it is quite possible that an offence would be commited (fraud?). Any criminal offence would ruin chances of later job opportunutues, and the landlord could easily evict all of you. So, whats the point?

2) A new contract is highly likely.

3) Strictly speaking you may not need to put this in writing, but it is best to do so for evidential reasons - it is a lot easier to dispute this later if it is written down in the contract.

[Richard1966]

Need to know what your current tenancy status is before being able to answer

[asto5]

not sure what exactly you need to know...

Took out a 12 month contract in July, but he wants to renovate the house. So we've agreed to have a look at this other house, which is bigger and newer, so we're considering it. He's not making us move at all ( I assume he can't!?). So his proposal was to just move to this house for the rest of the contract at the same rent!

Thanx for the answer so far!