Anti-social behaviour in Dorchester: news update

4/18/2011

Dorchester: a new tenant signed up to a Starter Tenancy in August 2010. Within a few weeks we started to receive allegations of anti-social behaviour including door bells being buzzed at all hours, noise, frequent guests coming and going at all hours of the day.

We issued warnings to the tenant and he was reminded that he was subject to a starter tenancy, which effectively means that the tenancy is an assured shorthold tenancy for the first year. 

If we receive allegations of anti-social behaviour we can investigate and if we believe a nuisance exists, we can issue two months notice.

The situation continued with a number of residents complaining to us about smoking, drinking, harassment, abusive swearing, threats and excessive noise.

We visited with the police to serve injunction paperwork on the tenant advising him when he was due to attend court. An injunction is an order of the court requiring the person or persons to whom it is directed to do a particular act or stop doing a particular act.

The following day we served a Section 21 notice on the tenants giving him two months' notice to vacate the property.

At the application for the injunction in March 2011, the tenant terminated his tenancy and the judge awarded possession of the property in June 2011. The tenant decided that he would leave before that date and left shortly after.