Lootman wrote:Mike4 wrote:But did you read the link? Because that is exactly what happened, as far as I can see.
The LL and tenant jointly and voluntarily signed an AST with tenant not having seen the place, then on seeing it they (correctly in my view) realised the rent was 'too high'. The place was a badly maintained dump but this is a red herring. Skip through all that stuff. The flat next door had also just been let for £500 a month less, so they appealed the rent. Successfully.
If I had been the judge then I would have ruled that the problem was that the tenant had failed to do his due diligence (by not seeing the place before signing a lease) and so could not complain if he later was unhappy with the deal. Unless the place had been dishonestly misrepresented anyway.
But you are right: as stated this is de facto rent control.
There was no judge, it was a tribunal! A tribunal of two people. One a surveyor of some sort, the other a JP.
But yes, natural business practise would be for a contract to be enforced no matter how 'unfair' it appears on the face of it. But as I said, this is a red herring. The ruling would have been the same even if the tenant HAD viewed it first, and rented it with eyes wide open.
The whole thing is open to abuse I reckon.
View a property, outbid everyone by a large margin to secure it, then complain to the "FIRST-TIER TRIBUNAL
PROPERTY CHAMBER (RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY)" that your rent is too high, and ask them to reduce the rent to 'fair rent'. A rent which had you offered it in the first place, probably would not have secured you the property.