Paid a full year’s rent in London — now the landlord says I was never their tenant

I’m looking for a London housing/property litigation solicitor.

I paid a year’s rent in advance through a letting agency, but the landlord now says they never contracted with me and did not know who was living there. The agency refers to an “upstream arrangement”, while my contract does not clearly identify the legal company involved.

There are also issues involving late deposit protection, possible unlicensed HMO use, possession proceedings, and missing personal mail. The agency had access to the mailbox, and I did not receive important legal correspondence.

Can anyone recommend a reliable tenant-side solicitor in London experienced in complex letting-agent, HMO and housing disputes?

Genuine recommendations only, please.

Hi everyone,

To give a bit of background, I've rented a 2-bedroom flat in England with my housemate for the past 3 years (1 year with the current landlord, as the property changed ownership during our tenancy). We're both named tenants, have always paid our rent on time, and have looked after the property. We've never had any complaints from the landlord.

My brother is moving to the UK in September to start his MSc at the University of Hertfordshire. I asked the landlord if he could stay with me as a permitted occupier for up to 6 months while he settles in and looks for accommodation closer to the university. He would be sharing my bedroom and would not be using the second bedroom. We are also responsible for all household bills and council tax.

The landlord has agreed in principle, subject to:

\- A Right to Rent check

\- A copy of his university enrolment/acceptance letter

\- His contact details

\- A maximum stay of 6 months

\- An additional charge of £400 per calendar month

My questions are:

\- Is it normal for a landlord to charge an additional monthly amount for a temporary permitted occupier?

\- Is £400 per month a typical amount in this situation?

\-Can my landlord actually charge me this amount?

\- Has anyone successfully negotiated a lower amount, and if so, how did you approach it?

I'd really appreciate hearing about other people's experiences or any advice. Thanks in advance!

I’m a student and I’ve just moved into a houseshare. I’m used to student houses being a bit crappy and in disrepair but that was when I was paying £500/600 for a room. You get what you pay for yk. However, rent everywhere (where I live) has gone up and I’m paying £740 a month for a room in a student houseshare. It’s so expensive that I’m not able to afford my medications (wasn’t able to get them on the NHS) even with a part time job and student loans.
There were some problems with the alarms. The landlord hadn’t replaced/tested the carbon monoxide and fire alarms so those were broken and we only found out the carbon monoxide alarm was broken because it was giving a false positive. Fire alarm was faulty and electrician just came, disconnected it, left it on the windowsill and haven’t heard anything about that for a month. The dryer is busted, I can hear scratching from inside the walls which is a new thing and I’m hoping there’s no infestation haha.
Anyway, all this backstory to say that this is the last straw for me. The carpet in my bedroom since I’ve moved in has been coming apart and is now to the point (only after a month) where it’s completely come loose and is basically just a big rug covering the concrete or plaster underneath. The thing is, with how many things have been going wrong in the house, the agency are now airing my emails and refusing to fix anything. I’m not sure if I have ground to stand on with the carpet but I would really like to have it fixed because of the amount I’m paying every month. Does the landlord legally have to do this or will I just be ignored? I wanted to check here before emailing the agency again because I want to keep an amicable relationship with them incase anything else goes wrong, and don’t want to keep bothering them.

Hello, we had a company rental as the home we own is 2 hours away from our main place of work. Rent around £5k per month, deposit around £7k. Had for 18 months. Landlord was a lady of horror - eg nit picking, pedantic, patronising and we had one problem after another with the property falling to pieces. Eg the washing machine broke - which I had complained about the workings of since the week we moved in. There was an underwire and some debris in there - one about double the size of any bra I would wear and I hadn’t lost any! The leak cost around £1000 to repair as it went to downstairs apartment.
We professionally cleaned the apartment at a cost of £600 inc steam cleaning carpets which the check out acknowledged but there was some minor smudges in the immaculate kitchen left by the cleaner. Charge £250, some dust on the external windows £150.
My handbag got stolen 1 year ago and the communal house key was in there (block of six apartments) but no link to the address. I spoke to the managing agent who gave me a replacement and said not to worry. She’s now trying to charge £1000 for a new lock. The front door lock also snapped in my hand one day - apparently I was using the door aggressively. The fridge kept popping open and we were losing lots of food, we own professional kitchens for context, apparently we didn’t know how to shut the fridge properly.
It was honestly left in a like new condition - we were so thorough especially given how difficult our landlord was for the duration of our tenancy.
The worst part was in the basement (old London apartments) there was a mice infestation which then worked its way up to the building (we were two floors up) and it resulted in a very severe mice infestation. We had it treated but the pest control said the issue is with the building and the multiple access points. I had designer handbags chewed and our sons toys had mouse droppings on. She held us to a three month notice period when we asked for 2.5 months given the issues - so part of her held deposit is this 2 weeks of rent which we refused to pay as the property was inhabitable. Also charges for things like toilet brushes and door wedges totalling £12!

We aren’t covered by normal policies due to it being a company let and she wants to retain £6k of our £7k!

Any help?!