In England and Wales, tenant must not be put at a disadvantage of not knowing where to serve legal notices on landlord to sue them.
Tenant have a legal right to have an address to serve notice on landlord,
however this right to be given that address only applies when they are still a tenant. If tenant is renting in England, that address must be in England
The tenant is covered for this under two laws, one criminal and one civil: the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987.
That 1987 Act allows tenant to withhold rent until an address is given where legal notices can be served on landlord. Once given, the back rent must be paid to landlord.
The 1985 Act makes it a criminal offence if the person collecting the rent does supply that address in writing, within 21 days of it being requested by tenant. The local council will deal with taking that agent to court.
Although Land Registry takes a while to update, for £3 (in England and Wales) you can get a copy of the deeds of the property you rent and these hold a lot of information e.g. name of address of landlord, what they paid for the property, all the charges they have against the property such as mortgage and any other charges they may have against that property.
https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/search-the-registerIt is also worth tenant paying for the additional cover of legal expenses with their contents insurance: sometimes this legal cover is called Family Cover. Before starting the annual contents insurance, read the small print for that legal cover to ensure that includes actions against a landlord, if it doesn’t, find another contents insurer.
Read the small print. That policy will often say that that they will not take over an existing case, so be sure to call your legal cover insurers before taking action . Ask your house contents insurer (in writing) to provide a claim form for legal action as it seems sometimes they say on the phone that you will not qualify for a legal claim when you do.
If the legal insurers think you have a case, they cover all your legal costs except for the excess you will pay on any household claim. If you don’t like the solicitor you have then tell them and they will arrange for the work to be taken away from that solicitor; you are the customer. The insurer will cover all your legal costs up to the limit in your policy (usually about 100k), minus your usual excess and they will look to retrieve their cost from the other party
