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Question Details: I am renting a house that was sold on to another party. I was sent a letter from their lawyer stating that the rent would remain the same, and that I should pay it into a bank account, but they did not give me the account details. I called the lawyer to request that he inspect the house and give me a tenancy agreement, but did not get a response. The owners recently contacted me requesting payment. There is still no tenancy agreement. Do I have to pay?
Filed under Tenancy | 1421 View(s)
Community Law Wellington & Hutt Valley
Yes, it is likely you will still have to pay the rent.
Even without a written tenancy agreement, both the landlord and tenant will still have the protection of the Residential Tenancies Act. The terms of the tenancy agreement will be whatever has been verbally agreed between the tenant and the landlord, and the rights and responsibilities under the Act. If you had a written agreement with the previous owners, your terms are likely to continue as they were.
In your circumstances, you may have an excuse for not paying rent (before you had a bank account to pay it into) but this does not affect your liability to pay it.
Read here about what can happen if you get behind on your rent: www.communitylaw.org.nz.
Answered 27 Aug 2013. The IMPORTANT NOTICE below is part of this answer.
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