Yes, Colin. I concur and in my particular case, I’ve been a great, always on time, non problematic tenant … and my landlord hasn’t necessarily kept to his part of the deal. Especially on the basics, like GSC’s.
I should have bought a house years ago. It’s my own stupid fault.
Positively, you have all helped me see the light. There’s a way out of this.
I know, I’m a landlord myself. Doesn’t stop that particular landlord from being a moron, though.
problem is years ago you may not have had the money to save and itv is easy to look back and say .I should have done this and that… I first rented and then my landady gave me a private mortgage, that helped me on the property ladder… Now i earn much more than then but prices are far higher it is not easy .I am not a holliday man so all the money I would have spent on holls , a flash car , drinking, I saved and bought properties. Everyone spends their money in a different way.
Under Term (6) should be specified the notice period. I give tenants 2 months notice period to vacate the property. Nothing stops me to think that he will need 12 months notice!
However in relation to repair and expenses, you may putting yourself in a precarious position because repair should be agreed by landlord and if you haven’t got anything in writing agreeing so, it open to discussion. The same apply for the plumbing work you claiming for £1000, door replacement, roof, etc etc . Have you actually request in writing to carry out this work and if so how would be paid for? In normal circumstances tenant should not carry out repair work unless authorised by the landlord. I do not allowed tenants to touch anything unless authorised by myself. To put in simple words, the landlord could claim damage and recover costs from you. As manu other fellow members suggested here, get some advice.
Yes, It is n offence not providing Gas certificate but you will need to understand how this will affect in case you will end up in court, in other words this will not stop the landlord from eviction. He may not be able to issue S21 but still can evicting based on “discretionary ground”. Please search “mandatory and discretionary ground for possession”
You will not achieve anything without a solid evidence that your landlord is trying to evict you for whatever reason, try to call and figure out what is planning to do. This will avoid a lot of headaches.
Hi Dom
Under term 6 it states -
“The term of the agreement is a periodic tenancy beginning April 1st and ‘continues on a year to year basis until the landlord or tenant terminates the tenancy”
I did a screen grab which is posted earlier in this thread.
Hence, the discussion here of the implications. There’s nothing more in the agreement about termination.
The emergency repairs had to be carried out immediately and given the landlords track record, and to save my valuables, I brought plumbers in myself. So, if there’s a burst pipe in the living room ceiling, I had to get it repaired. I’ve kept a record of everything I’ve had done; and the plumbers will attest to the importance of making those repairs. In a normal world, I would have made a phone call to the landlord and they would have commissioned a plumber. From my experience, they’ve been less than keen to get things done in a timely manner.
I simply had to act.
Additionally, I’ve replaced saniflo, washer and dryer in the cellar because the water table is high here so when there’s heavy rain, water comes up through the cellar floor. Eventually, the electrical items broke, they’d survived 1ft of water many times but eventually were beyond repair.
The front door was insecure from the start of my tenancy and I have emails from the landlord saying he was going to replace it but it never happened. It was unsafe and I had to secure my valuables and provide a normal level of security.
I understand what you’re saying but in this situation, they’ve done very little and not acted upon the problems. Additionally, my ‘quiet enjoyment’ of the property has been ruined by constant verbal abuse - I’m not in the least bit militant but it’s very upsetting to hear a landlord say ‘I want him out of the property’ especially in front of my children,
Re Flooding - I had the local water utility company come and investigate the flooding so there is evidence of me trying to resolve that, too, as the landlord simply shrugged,
I have now read some material from the NRLA that the landlords notice period for s21 is indeed capped at 6 months. Please ignore my earlier comments about a 12 month notice period
Thank you, David. You’ve been more than generous with your time.
So, it would be six months from issuance of a S21? Does it usually work from the date it’s issued / formalised?
This continues to be interesting.
In the light of the most recent posts I feel I must repeat that s.21(4) states that the landlord’s notice cannot bring the lease to an end earlier than a notice to quit, and so far as I can see this has never been altered by any of the Coronavirus legislation, nor has s21 been amended recently, nor has the common law relating to notices to quit been changed by case law. And just to make sure we don’t get side-tracked I would point out that s.21(4ZA) is irrelevant in this instance because this is a periodic tenancy.
As things stand I continue to think that if the landlord does not serve a s21 notice by 11:59am on 1 October 2021 giving 6 months notice from that time (ie: expiring on the last day of a period of this periodic tenancy) then the earliest valid expiry date for such a notice is 11:59 on 1 April 2023. Such a notice could be given at any time up until 11:59am on 1 October 2022. The notice period can be more than 6 months because s.21 specifies minimum notice periods, not maximums. I would like to see the source for the NRLA assertion that the s21 notice period is “capped” at 6 months. I am very doubtful about that. As an aside I cancelled my subscription to the NRLA when their legal team gave me advice which, when I checked, was wrong.
Be very careful at all times not to take advice from someone who has not checked primary legislation (Acts) and secondary legislation (Regulations). This applies across the board. The country is full of people who say what the law is but they have never read the actual law, all they do is regurgitate second-hand information. The great virtue of the Shelter website is that they cite original sources, either statute or case law.
Petefonda asks: ‘So, it would be six months from issuance of a S21? Does it usually work from the date it’s issued / formalised?’.
First, the date you are interested in is not necessarily the date it is ‘issued / formalised’ and certainly not the date written on the notice. What counts is the date of service. Unlike many other pieces of legislation relating to land I have never found anything in the Housing Act 1988 which sets out rules for service. There is a good article about the point here (scroll down to ‘How do I serve a Section 21 Notice?’). Unfortunately this article does not give sources, but it sounds right to me based on my experience of service in other contexts.
As to whether the notice period would be six months from the date of service, the answer is “not necessarily”. The minimum notice period was set out in the 1988 Act but has been varied several times by the Coronavirus legislation, so it depends what the rules are at the date of service. Again I commend the Shelter website (although at the time of writing they are not quite up to date).
And remember this too, you don’t actually have to vacate on the date the notice expires. Many tenants wait until the landlord applies to the court (and there is a strict time limit for the landlord to do this), and then wait for the hearing date. Hard to say when that would be in current circumstances. Could be many months after the landlord’s application.
I’m not clear why you think s21(4Za) isn’t relevant? It was ruled in Taylor v Spencer and later confirmed by the Deregulation Act that with a periodic AST in England, A s21 notice no longer has to expire at the end of a tenancy period.
To be fair, NRLA don’t use the word capped in their Landlord Fundamentals training course, (that I went back to), they just say “NTQ period if greater”. The word capped came from a housing lawyer I spoke to a few years ago, but which I mis-remembered as applying only to the tenants notice. Again though, I’m not sure what you’re contesting here as they seem to be agreeing with your earlier assertion that the notice period is 6 months even for tenancies with a period greater than that.
David and PerryGroveFarm
Thanks for further discussing this.
Just to note, I informally spoke with a lawyer last week and where he agreed here was in ensuring the notice to leave is issued after October 1st to maximise my stay here (to give me ample time to find alternative accommodation in a prudent fashion).
What he didn’t elucidate on was whether the notice period come April 1st would be 6 or twelve months.
I have a great deal of expenditure from my diminished savings this month so I’ll have to seek legal counsel when I can. For now, getting to Oct 1st is key to ensuring some kind of short term stability.
Please bear in mind the landlord hasn’t performed any kind of safety checks for over 10 years and now is insistent on getting a GSC. I have asked him why the rush now given you haven’t honoured your responsibility for 10+ years. I didn’t receive an answer hence me thinking he can get the GSC and then ‘throw us out’.
I’m tied up for the next week or so. I will look at Taylor v Spencer (and McDonald v Fernandez), and I hope to come back when I have done that.
So far as contested points are concerned, it seems to me that all your sources and mine agree that in this case the minimum notice period is 6 months because (1) this is a tenancy ‘from year to year’ and therefore an annual periodic tenancy, and therefore (2) the shortest possible notice to quit is 6 months, and (3) the provision in s24(4) that a s21 notice can’t give less notice than a notice to quit is applicable - you say that NRLA have said ‘NTQ period if greater’. If I am right about all that I think the only uncertainty is whether a 6 month notice must expire at the end of a period of the tenancy, ie: 11:59am on 1 April in the relevant year. Do you agree this is the only point on which there might be disagreement?
David & Perry Grove Farm
So, if my landlord issues a notice to leave on, say, October 5 2021, and my tenancy runs April 1st to April 1st, when would I have to leave?
Would it be 6 months from October 5 or six months from April 1st?
Note - substantial edits made to the first version of this post.
Petefonda - so far as I can see that’s the point on which there has been disagreement. I think there are two possibilities.
Possibility (a) - 6 months notice to expire on any day - Notice served (not “issued”) 5 October 2021; notice period 6 months, therefore notice cannot expire earlier than midday (see below) on 5 April 2022. If one wants to split hairs one might say that the time of day at which the notice was served might be relevant but courts don’t like hair-splitting.
Possibility (b) - 6 months notice to expire not earlier than the earliest date when a notice to quit could expire, which is the last day of a period of the tenancy - Notice served 5 October 2021; earliest expiry date 1 April 2023 because that is the first day which is both 6 months after service of the notice and the earliest day on which a notice to quit could bring the tenancy to an end.
I think David would say possibility (a) is correct, and I think he rests his argument on s.21(4ZA). But that section modifies the operation of s.21(4)(a). It has no effect on s.21(4)(b) which contains the important proviso that a s.21 notice cannot end a periodic tenancy earlier than a notice to quit. At the moment I am sticking with (b). I have asked David to confirm whether this is the only thing we disagree about and I hope he will answer that question. But I would point out that in Taylor v Spencer, the case he cites, the landlord’s notice gave two dates, a fixed date and an open date to be calculate by a formula. The fixed date was wrong and the notice failed on that test, but it was saved by the formula (see para. 34 of the judgement).
We need to remember that another unusual feature of your tenancy agreement is that the term commenced at 12:00 noon on the first day. Most tenancy agreements are expressed so that the term commences on a date without stating a time. If your agreement had done that it would have started at midnight on 1 April and both the fixed term and any statutory periodic tenancies would have expired on 31 March (at midnight). But in your case the term is 12:00 noon on 1 April until 12:00 noon on the next 1 April (which I have referred to as 11:59 am for the avoidance of doubt). In McDonald v Fernandez (CA 2003) Hale LJ stated at para. 15 of her judgement: ‘It might, I suppose, be possible to grant a tenancy from midday on the 3rd of each month to midday on the 3rd of the next. In that event, the same day could be both the first day of the new period and the last day of the old.’
Never forget that even if the landlord serves a notice which is undoubtedly correct in all respects you don’t have to leave your home on the date specified in the notice. You don’t have to leave until the landlord obtains an order of the court. That takes time.
I think Perrygrovefarm’s last point above is the important one for you, It is your landlord who has to get the notice period right and if he fails to do so, the notice will be invalid and he would have to start again.
Having re-read the section of the TA that you reproduced in post 9, I also just noticed that your rent is being demanded monthly, which I assume is what you pay. This normally determines the period of the tenancy, but here is in conflict with the expressed period. The wording of this agreement is certainly highly unusual and in my view is either very foolish or very clever, depending on what the landlord is trying to achieve. Where a contract has has conflicting terms, it is usually up to lawyers to argue and a court to rule on the actual period of the tenancy. This could make it very difficult for the landlord to serve a valid notice. However, the good news for you is that I think you will only have to give one months notice expiring at the end of a tenancy period to end the tenancy. The reason I say this is that where a tenancy agreement is unclear, the courts almost always go with the interpretation most favourable to the tenant as the “junior partner” in the contract.
Perrygrovefarm, I am still very interested in anything you find on our contested point above and will monitor this post with interest.
Petefonda, I suggest you come back to the post when and if the landlord serves you with notice, but I would reiterate that in that event, getting advice from a housing specialist solicitor will be crucial to you.
David and Perry Grove Farm
Thank you so much; I owe you both (and everyone on the forum, a debt of gratitude).
The points you’re discussing here are what the lawyer intimated at in our informal conversation - ‘try and hold them off until October first and things are very different because you’ll be <6 months towards the end of the tenancy’.
To extrapolate here, I guess he was suggesting (b) rather than (a) but that can only be determined by commissioning his professional evaluation of the TA.
I agree completely with David’s last post.
Any idea of the likelihood of the period of the tenancy (by paying monthly) having precedence over the term of the tenancy?