Hi everyone this is not a benefit problem but the welfare of the lady involved is worrying me. I am dealing with a case where the tenant has been withholding the rent from her Landlord as she believes her dispute is not being dealt with properly. Her dispute is with her neighbour and feels under the antisocial laws she has the right to withhold her rent until the landlord evicts her neighbour. I have looked everywhere to see how we can resolve this but cant seem to find any guidance, as I worried this may lead to evictions. I think this only applies to Scotland but if anyone can provide some guidance on the issue that will be great.

The witholding of rent is a vexed issue and I'm not surprised you have had a hard time finding concrete guidance. I must admit I cannot offer any either- not my exact speciality.

However, I do know that the circumstances in which a tenant has the right to withold rent are very limited indeed, and I believe relate only to cases where the property is in need of urgent structural maintenance that is not being carried out.

So I would share your worry about the possibility of eviction and strongly urge your client to come to some arrangement with the landlord, whilst pursuing the ASB problems through the police.

Would be interested to know if there was anything I was unaware of though.

Further research has confirmed that this is a very grey area indeed. But it does appear that there are stronger rights in Scottish law than English. However, everything I have found relates to repairs, nothing at all about ASB...

Best of luck, and please let us know how it develops.

The following is relevant to the law in England and Wales only as I know precious little ablout scottish law.

This woman could be in trouble here. Non-payment of rent will, almost certainly, put her in breach of her tenancy agreement and could lead to eviction. Rent maybe withheld in certain circumstances, i.e. where the landlord fails in his repairing obligations and the tenant carries out the repairs himself and sets-off the amount against the due rent. Or, where the lease is frustrated, but, the frustrating event must be extreme preventing any substantial use being made of the premises under the terms of the lease.

If she is being deprived of quiet enjoyment then she might have a claim against the landlord but this cannot be pursued by withholding rent. However, landlords have traditionally only been held liable for acts committed by his other tenants where those acts have been lawful.

Excessive noise, for example has not previously made a landlord liable. However, my housing law knowledge is not bang up to date so that situation might have changed recently She requires specialist-housing advice immediately.

Just had a look on Adviser Net for Scotland and it would seem that you can only withhold rent for repairs not done, and even then the tenant should keep it in a seperate bank account and has to pay the arrears when reapairs are completed.

Sorry, that doesn't really help with her problem, does it? Apart from the fact that she really should be paying her rent and pursuing this matter in another way.

thanks everyone for the advice, but unfortantly she is persistent that is the way she wants to go..... oh well!