I have ASTs rolling agreement with tenants as I mange myself. Changes is coming from 1st of May. Do i need to do new tenancy agreement? Or keep same tenancy agreement.
You keep using the existing AST which will convert to the new style tenancy agreements on 1st May. The Government will issue a document in March which you will have to serve on your tenants explaining how the transition will work. The new assured tenancy agreements will be made available for new tenancies starting from 1st May.
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The Renters Rights Act is very long and complex and the penalties for mistakes are eye-watering. If you are not yet completely on top of it, I would suggest some intense reading or some training with one of the landlord associations.
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Google ‘24 guides to Renters Rights Act’ or look on ‘the independent Landlord’ blog.
You don’t need to do new tenancy agreements (and can only do those by ending current ones and starting new ones with agreement of tenants). But if there are any clauses that aren’t allowed under the RRA these become void and you must not try to apply/enforce these which would be an offence and could result in a big fine. For example if you had a clause automatically increasing rent by CPI every June, that would become illegal. Or if you require rent paid in advance of the rental period that is no longer allowed -can be done voluntarily by tenant but you can’t require it - to avoid any doubt amend the tenancy agreement and get tenant to pay at start of rental period instead. Again to amend you need tenant to sign amendment
So you do need to understand RRA and what is no longer allowed and potentially change some things like the rent payment date to make sure you won’t be breaching RRA, even if you don’t issue a new tenancy.
Good luck
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There has never been a better year to have membership of a landlord association.
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