OpenRent Tenancy Agreement makes giving Notice harder

I just wanted to draw your attention to the fact that Openrent’s standard tenancy agreement has a requirement that Notices are served by post when the law allows for email which is faster and more secure. What if the tenant refuses to sign for delivery? How strange requirement from an online state agent when the contract is signed online?
Not only that. I have found out that you only need to give three months notice. Current regulations say the actual leaving date CAN BE on any day of the month yet OpenRent’s Tenancy states that the leaving date must be on the last day of the tenancy payday. As I waited to see if tenants could pay until after the due day it means now I have to give the tenants nearly FOUR months notice!!! How silly is that? we’ll never use Open Rent’s tenancy again that’s for sure.

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I use one provided by the NRLA free when a member .Easy to follow and simple language

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Hi Colin,
We want out as having a lot of problems with our tenants and it’s making me ill. In your opinion do you think investors are still buying in our area? The auction cut off date for new entries is Wednesday. The auction itself is 16th July. Also got estate agent who is meant to be offering it around on his data base of investors.
Also, do you think investors prefer an already tenanted property if its in good condition?
Hope you and your cats are still keeping well?

@Colin3 Our area, being your area too!

we are all good… If the price is right investors will buy .I have bought one place with an existing tenant and he is still there after 20 years. I do know that it sometimes happens that way , but the price is usually lower. Look back at Venmores and sutton kersch past auctions to see the trend., Its anyones guess what will happen nowdays of course As long as you bought many years ago you will come out on top Tenanted, good payer and in good condition is a top job in my book

Thank you Colin.
Glad you are okay and thank you as always. I don’t know how you have managed to keep going. The stress has beaten me now just not cut out for it I guess.
The house was in fantastic condition until they made the bathroom mouldy. We have had the mould washed off (but stains remain and builder said even paint may well not cover them totally) but there has also been a leak (which is also now resolved) but because it was small over time, the woodwork and walls in hall have large water marks.
I will look at Venmores as so far only contacted Sutton Kersh.
Kind regards

Bought five years ago, one of Riversides finest. Not sure we will make anything but to get back purchase price is the most she will put the reserve at with Sutton Kersh.
We did it up too well not realizing how it worked.
Do you think anyone will pay a bit extra for quality ?
But suppose not much over the required yield for the area.

I bought from Riverside… a great property . If you can get a little bit more then you will pay no capital gains

Ok. Just called up Venmores. Thanks for that I had forgotten about them.
His colleague meant to be calling back so will see what he says.
It was a good little house, shame tenants ruined it but that’s life, you never know.

Thanks for the heads up, but sorry you have been stung by this. I wouldn’t use OR under these circumstances either. As a member of NRLA I shall use their TA too in future.

The Open Rent Tenancy agreement is a couple of years out of date !
Service should be by First class post with a certificate of Posting, which according to the law of Proprerty Act 1925 is deemed served on the second working day after posting.
If you can, service by Hand with a witness and Photographed, - is ‘King’
Courtesy of (3rd party referral / service removed)
Free Advice given, see our web site.

The Rent Increase clause in the NRLA’s is disadvantageous to Landlords
(3rd party referral / service removed)

chris 10 are you promoting Possession Friend, as you have made comments against two other groups, Open rent and NRLA

My comments about Open Rents Tenancy agreement are factual, as is my comment on the Rent increase clause in the NRLA tenancy agreement.
I endorse my comments with my company name to show my specialist background ( I wasn’t ‘selling’ anything ) so readers can attribute a commensurate level of trust in the comments made.

I too am a specialist (50 years) but when i make a comment I do not put in my company name as I believe its unfair to advertise on someone elses site You are selling a service no matter how you dress up your reply. Of course if Open rent do not mind or are getting an advantage from you then that is o k

So what’s your point - problem Colin ?

You are still promoting the company in a round about way and putting down two good companies. This in effect is “selling” your company - Chris

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We are landlords with an OpenRent tenancy agreement. The most recent tenancy agreement signed in January 2020 does allow for notice to be served by email.

13.3 The Landlord and the Tenant agree that notice may be served on the other party by email. The email addresses for notice are:

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Hi Marcos, thanks for your thoughts here.

OpenRent has been offering an AST for a number of years. As you know, the laws (as well as convention and best practice) around tenancy creation have changed frequently in recent years. To ensure that we continue to offer a market-leading AST, we update ours regularly.

This means that there will be minor variations between older ASTs generated on our website and newer ones. This thread highlights two examples where this is the case.

The law changed a few years ago to remove the requirement for section 21 notices to expire on the final day of a rental period for tenancies in England, so our contract was subsequently updated.

We also decided, after feedback from customers consultation with lawyers, that it was sensible to permit service of notices by email as outlined in the contract.

So overall, please rest assured that our AST is reviewed regularly so as to make life as simple as possible for our customers, while also ensuring that all parties are protected, so we don’t think that the concerns mentioned in this thread should apply to the current version of our contract. However, we definitely value feedback from our customers so if you want to suggest any additions or amendments, you can always contact us at https://www.openrent.co.uk/faq#i-have-more-questions so we can consider these as part of our next review.

You can always find our most up-to-date tenancy agreement here:

https://www.openrent.co.uk/tenancy-agreement

I hope that answers your points. Thanks for raising your concerns.

Sam

Sam
thank you for your answer. I understand now the problem was with the AST being couple of years old. I haven’t used the tenancy renewal service but a standard tenancy renewal memorandum. Not sure if using Open Rent renewal process would have updated those conditions but in any case that service has only been live for a short time.
Regards
Marcos