Tenancy question

[elanfan]

Please can someone give me a definitive answer to my question. I’ve tried Google but I can’t find what I’m after.

At the end of a 12 month contract renting a flat are the tenants ENTITLED to go onto a rolling month to month contract. Tenants pay on time and in full each month despite issues with water damage, faulty windows and pad vermin. One tenant might be buying their own property over the next several months and doesn’t want to be stuck there.

The agent wants another 12 month contract as I guess it saves him work

What is the legal answer please?

[tomsugden]

Not sure you will get the info you need in the Home Cinema and Hi-Fi forum.

[Jordie Barretts sock]

AIUI, if nothing new is signed then it becomes a rolling contract where the tennent can give one month's notice but the landlord must give two. But that all might have changed with no fault evictions, etc.

[esuuv]

We had this when renting while buying a new property.

You're not "entitled" to a rolling tenancy - but the landlord would need to issue a section 21 to evict you if you didn't sign a new fixed term contract - in the interim you would be on a rolling contract.

Best to play nice though, so we just negotiated that we would have a 2 month break clause either way and signed a new 12 month contract.

I find the shelter website the clearest for these sort of issues.

[Ham_and_Jam]

The tenants aren’t entitled to a rolling contract if the landlord or agent insist that a longer contract is required.

However the landlord must issue a section 21 notice and the minimum notice that’s specified in the contact to evict.

In the interim the tenants would actually roll onto the rolling contract until the legal stuff is served and executed.

Have you requested a monthly rolling contract? If rejected, I would be surprised if you offered a 6 month compromise it wouldn’t be accepted.

[surveyor]

We had this as tenants.

The agent just wanted to charge a fee and told us they would serve notice if I did not agree.

I had the landlord's direct email and asked if he was aware of what his agents were up to. As I recall he paid the agent's renewal fee.

The really bizarre thing is the renewal tenancy enable us to break at any time with 1 month's notice. Not something we asked for or expected to use, but it came in very useful.

So to OP, I'd suggest worse case asking for the right to terminate on 1 months notice in the renewal.

[Glade]

I had this when I was living alone. I just refused to pay a fee or sign another contract and pointed out that my original contrat said that the tenancy becomes rolling at the end of the fixed term. Nothing happened, just went onto a rolling contract and stayed there for several years.

Depends how good your poker game is - would you be bothered if they then gave you notice to leave on their terms? At the time I didn’t care and would have just moved elsewhere.

Must be a standard letting agent game to extract some cash on an annual basis.

[Wings]

surveyor said:

We had this as tenants.

The really bizarre thing is the renewal tenancy enable us to break at any time with 1 month's notice. Not something we asked for or expected to use, but it came in very useful.

So to OP, I'd suggest worse case asking for the right to terminate on 1 months notice in the renewal.

^^^ Agreed, this LL always recommends his tenants to rollover their tenancy into a Statutory Periodic Tenancy Agreement, works both for the tenant and this LL.