OpenRent Tenancy Agreement: Contractual or Statutory Periodic Tenancy?

Landlord Discussion
1

Hi there. Selling our property and need to complete formalities by serving notice on our tenant (everything is amicable and they have known of our plans for a while). Tenant is out of fixed term.

We used OpenRent’s Rent Now service and their AST. As far as I can see there is no clause saying what happens at the end of the fixed term, which implies it is now a statutory periodic tenancy. Yet OpenRent support are telling me it’s a contractual periodic tenancy, despite there being nothing in the contract to that effect.

Has anyone come across this before? Obviously it has a bearing on the date that we need to include in Form 6A, which we want to serve today.

1 Like
2

It doesnt really make much difference in this case. Just follow the notice clause in the tenancy agreement.

3

But then what should the expiry date be? Two months from today (statutory) or two months plus whatever is required to take it to the end of a tenancy period (contractual)?

4

The notice cant expire during the fixed/initial term, so it has to be 2 months plus whatever is required to take it to the end of that period.

5

We’re well out of the initial fixed term so the notice wouldn’t expire during it. My understanding is that with a contractual periodic tenancy, the notice must expire the day before a rent payment is due (allowing at least two clear months) but with a statutory period tenancy it can expire exactly two months after serving the notice.

So my question remains: why are OpenRent saying that their AST provides for a contractual periodic tenancy at the end of the fixed term, when there is no clause in the agreement that says so?

6

That requirement changed with the Deregulation Act 2015, so a plain 2 months plus a couple of days for postage is fine.

7

That’s interesting. The NRLA are still advising otherwise: Contractual & Statutory Periodic Tenancies | Landlord Guide | NRLA

8

I found the clause you mention: Deregulation Act 2015

Odd how this never seems to get mentioned anywhere. Too late for me now anyway. Had to serve the notice yesterday so erred on the side of caution and made the expiry date the last day of the tenancy period. It’s only an extra two weeks and on the plus side it will give my tenant a little more time to find somewhere else.

Thanks for your help.