Topic: Tenancy Bribery

[Sungold]

The Town Council are going to ask allotment tenants to sign a new tenancy agreement between now and April 1st 2016 when we pay our rent, we know this is unlawful without the required 12 months notice.
To get around this the Council are proposing that if a tenant signs the new agreement they will get a reduction in their allotment rent. If a tenant refuses to sign they will be given the required 12 months notice and stay on their original rent, no reduction, until 2017.
Now I read this as coercion / bribery to break the law of the land, if you sign you get a reduction, if you keep to the law, you get no reduction, how can this be moral or legal? How can we fight this because although objections are going in the council say its up to each tenant?

[galina]

Are the changes in the agreement cosmetic or fundamental?  Not worth fighting for if it is just bringing your agreement in line with others, well worth fighting if it is really detrimental.  Most people will happily get a discount, unless they know  w h y  they should not sign the new contract.  It isn't the change as such that is the problem (although as you say this is the illegal bit), it is  w h a t  the council want to change that affects every plot holder. 

Welcome to A4A, Sungold!  Where is your allotment? 

[Sungold]

Thanks for that  but no tenant has had an agreement in their hands to read it, just going to be asked to sing it as we pay our rent, it just looks to me as if you agree to bypass allotment tenancy law you get a discount, if you are law abiding you dont, cant understand how Spennymoor Town Council can act in this way. We are talking about 790 allotments with over 1200 tenants / joint tenants, if the Council are allowed to bribe tenants on the allotments some tenants will have  35 old rules and others that sign will have around 40.

[Tee Gee]

Sounds like a type of tax fiddle to me in so far as if you want a receipt you pay full price, whereas with no receipt ( cash) you can have it cheaper.

Possibly something to do with government grant cut backs!

But then again, I can be a bit of a synic 

[daveyboi]

The tenancy agreement is available on the council website it seems and at a very quick glance I cannot see anything bad at all.

http://parishes.durham.gov.uk/spennymoor/Pages/Allotments.aspx

The Town Council is a member of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners.

We have recently developed an Allotment Agreement which sets out the terms and conditions in accepting a tenancy, and lays out the obligations of both parties.

[lavenderlux]

I can't see anything 'bad' with it either and the new tenancy agreement seems to be fair so everyone gets enjoyment from their plot!  Its obviously going to be easier for each site secretary if every plot holders on their field has the same rules from 1 April this year but everyone will have these rules from 1 April 2017. 

We have tenancy agreements and separate rules but if they were amalgamated, they would read very much like those your Council wants to introduce.

[Digeroo]

Cannot say that I like either condition 1 or condition 2.
1 says you are not allowed to have an opinion or take things higher eg to court if you want to, and 2 says they can change anything they want to.

Condition 8 says you cannot prune your apple trees.

[daveyboi]

I think that the council is a member of National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners would mean that you would get a reasonable deal anyway with any issues.

[SMP1704]

I suppose the question is why does the council want to change the tenancy year from (presumably) Oct-September to April-March.  I'd guess it's to help keep everything in line with the financial year.

[lavenderlux]

Our Council changed our renewal dates from a start date of 1 October to 1 April a few years ago;  but now they are considering changing it again.  The difficulty for field managers is that with a 1 April year, plot holders have to be given three weeks to pay their bill, if they don't then they get a reminder which gives them another three weeks and then an eviction notice which gives them four weeks to clear any items off their plot, so we're then up to mid-June before a plot can be let to a new tenant and that's getting a bit late to bring a perhaps overgrown plot into line for growing crops that year.  Tenants are supposed to give the Council three months notice if they are giving up a plot at the end of the allotment year, but not all do.