Lease

I am very lucky to have found love again and hope to move in with my fiancé and her children in her rented home soon. However her lease names her ex too and the landlord has said that they require a letter from him stating his wish to be removed. He has contributed nothing to the house in the past three years and has only just started paying some maintenance for the children.

I would like to be on the lease once I move in but this looks like an issue if he will not cooperate.

Any thoughts anyone....he has previously said he would like to live in the house if we were ever to move out.

Many thanks

Can your partner prove how long its been since he left, I know I was able to have my exes name removed from our tenancy when I was able to provide a copy of the electoral roll that proved he wasn''t on it.

Hope that helps, (a sympathetic ear at the letting agency also helped).

When was the lease last renewed? It is very unusual for a tenancy agreement to be longer than 12 months. Why did she renew it in joint names, 3 times, since he left?

It is still the original lease from when they moved in sixteen years ago....

sounds like it is an old fashioned lease and maybe the terms of the lease are more favourable than they would be if turned into a shorthold tennency where the landlord gets more rights to review the rent than under old fashioned lease.

Is that correct? Have there been regular upward rent reviews or are the periodic or is it a self repairing lease?

Previously rent increases have been sporadic but that might have been that my partner fell on difficult times when ex left leaving huge debts...all now up to date and there seems to be a review every two years now...good relationship with landlord now....

Oh joy, oh bliss !! A pure housing question ! I love '' em.
If you are surprised at this explosition of happiness, I''m a retired housing lawyer and know rather more about housing than I do about divorce. Not that I know nothing about divorce, mind you. I do like housing questions, though.
From the point of view of your intended, it is absolutely essential that you find out what sort of a tenancy it is. It may be assured shorthold, but it could possibly be assured ; I seem to recall that, in the old days, landlord often got their paperwork wrong and created assured tenancies ( which carry a greater degree of security ) by accident.
The Court does have power to transfer tenancies in the course of divorce proceedings but a lot can again depend on the type of tenancy it is. The landlord''s views will undoubtedly be taken into account.
I would like to ask whether you have seen the tenancy agreement, but I think you need to have it looked by a lawyer who knows what he is doing. It is vital that your fiancee does not do anything which would amount to a breach of the terms of the Lease and give the Landlord the right to take proceedings for possession ( though if it''s assured shorthold then the landlord could probably get possession relatively easily in any case ).
The other point is, make sure there are no arrears of rent.
LMM