ASSURED SHORTHOLD TENANCY VERSUS STATUTORY PERIODIC TENANCY
When your tenancy starts it will almost certainly be an Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement (AST). An AST is a fixed term agreement. It has a start and an end date. It contains all the clauses that you need to fulfil as a tenant, as well as detailing your landlords’ obligations.
On renewal the landlord and tenant need to decide if they would like to commit to another fixed term contract, so have a new Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement, or if they would like to revert to a statutory periodic tenancy, more commonly referred to as a month to month or rolling contract.
Both parties must be in agreement as to the type of tenancy they wish to renew on.
With both types of tenancy, all the clauses in the most recent AST remain legally valid ….. so, if you have renewed with a new AST, all of these clauses are the ones you are bound by. If you have opted to have a statutory periodic tenancy, the preceding AST is the one that has the clauses that you are bound by. An exception could be the level of rent, which may have been increased by mutual agreement or by way of a separate Section 13 notice. The biggest difference is when the tenancies will end and how they will end.
ENDING A TENANCY
Some tenant’s will stay in their rental property for 30 Plus years, others will leave after 6 months. Depending on if the landlord or the tenant want to end the tenancy will depend on the process to follow.
Landlords- if you want to end a tenancy you ALWAYS have to serve a notice. It will either be a Section 8, or a Section 21 notice (depending on the circumstances) It doesn’t matter that your tenant has a fixed term Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement, that details an ‘end’ date. You will not be granted possession of your property at court if you have not also served the relevant notice. Please see the chapter on Section 8 and Section 21 notices for more information on these.
Tenants – If you are in an Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement we will contact you if your landlord has our fully manged or rent collection services and ask you if you are looking to renew or to leave. You should also read your tenancy agreement to see what is stipulated about ending your tenancy. Commonly it is requested that you serve your landlord two months’ notice. It may also say in your agreement how you need to serve this notice (by post, email etc)
Tenants – if you are on a Statutory periodic Tenancy then the law is different. You must serve your landlord a minimum of one months’ notice (If you pay your rent monthly), this notice must be served on or before a rent payment date, and must end to coincide with a rent payment period.
Tenants – if you want to leave before your contract naturally ends there is a process for this. Remember in law, you are not permitted to simply ‘end’ an Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement. But if you need to do this then it can only be done by mutual agreement and there are financial implications. Note these financial implications are permitted under the Tenant Fee Ban Act. Full details of this are available on our web site or by contacting the office.
Debbie Jones Cert CIH, FARLA 12th January 2024
