Assured shorthold tenancy contract not signed - contract void?

Tenant Discussion
1

Hello everyone!

To make a very long story short, I am trying to get out of my assured shorthold tenancy a month before its renewal date. I do not have a break close in my contract.

I am fully aware my landlord is within his right to ask me to pay until the end of my tenancy.

This being said this is my second contract on the same property. From my understanding, if the contract is not re-signed at the end of the first one, the tenancy becomes a periodic tenancy, where I only have to give one month’s notice to leave, as I pay my rent monthly.

I have noticed that on all copies me and my partner have of the contract, the landlord has not signed it. On the contract, it states: “Once signed by all
parties and dated it will be legally binding.”

If my landlord has never signed this contract, does it make it void and then I’m on a periodic tenancy by default?

Just a little bit of context if you need it, we’ve let him know we wanted to leave early back in November but didn’t have a date yet and wanted to give him plenty of notice before actually giving our notice, and he basically said ok. When we actually handed in our 2 months’ notice, he came back to us saying we had to finish the lease as there was no break clause on our contract. I know he is within his right, but I’m feeling cheated as he didn’t mention that us leaving early would be a problem when we first contacted him. We are buying a house and cannot postpone our completion date.

Many thanks to anyone who can help!

Remie

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If you have a fixed term tenancy, you can leave at the end of the term without notice. If you are now on a statutory periodic tenancy, you can at any time serve a notice thats a minimum of 1 month ending on the last day of a tenancy period. If you have a contractual periodic tenancy with a longer initial term, then the contract will specify how you must serve notice.

Its not certain how a judge would interpret the fact that the landlord hasnt signed, but I think its possible that they would regard the fact that youve signed as an intention to be bound by the terms. I wouldnt risk going to court over it.

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