Tenant end date was 1st Feb; new draft proposal; delivered 2 Feb with rent increase. Tenant did not return or sign, section 21 submitted; 22nd Feb, the council told tenant she’s in a fixed term contract, she is not as hadn’t returned it and neither of us signed it. Please can anyone advise in absence of the signatures on AST how they can tell tenant she has a contract!
@Denise25 Council is correct that in a contract but not a fixed term one.. unless you and tenant actually agreed to end old AST on 1st Feb or tenant gave notice that it would end then or you served a s21/s8 and have obtained possession then you still have a contract on the original AST. Tenancies don’t automatically end just because the fixed term has reached the final date.
“Current Law (Pre-May 2026): If a fixed-term AST ends and the tenant stays, it becomes a rolling contract. It does not vanish; it continues until proper notice is given”
(Shelter “Assured Fixed Term Tenancies”)
The s21 has a min 2 month period (check what date you specified normally it should be 2 months plus a few days) so if you served it 21 Feb then the tenancy is till c 21 April at earliest. If tenant doesn’t move out and you have to gain possession via courts and bailliff then the tenancy may continue many months more potentially 6m -1y based on others’ comments here..
And…contracts currently can still be verbal not written…
Good luck
Council is incorrect, She doesn’t sound like she is in a fixed term contract as you have given the date that the fixed term contract expired. Assuming they have not paid the new higher rate, then no ‘new’ contract is in force.
However, the tenancy contract has not ended, and is now periodic rolling, so your Secton 21 sounds in order.
Have you had a conversation with the tenant about the rent increase? Do you know why they haven’t agreed it?
Why did you feel the need to issue a new AST to increase rent? Why not just have an informal chat and or issue a section 13 notice?
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Denise’s message is ambiguous. The council are wrong that the Ts in a fixed term contract, but Denise is wrong in assuming that the T has no contract.
This is incorrect. Either a statutory or contractual periodic tenancy is in force now that the fixed term has come to an end.
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@tatemono think you may have missed the whole of my message
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No I read it all … and pointed out which part of it was incorrect 
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A contractual periodic tenancy (which the open rent tenancy is via rent now) is classed as a continuation of existing contract so Karl is correct in confirming there is no new contract…
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I shall not react ….the makes me feel you’re being lighthearted, so I shall take it as such.
Nor shall I waste my breath explaining the rationale for my comments.
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No he can’t confirm it… cos he doesn’t know if the OP’s AST explicitly states whether a contractual periodic tenancy arises. If it doesn’t, it’s statutory periodic and that’s a new contract, and if the OP wants to use S21, this will have implications for the notice period.
Until he knows that the OP has issued an AST that states that it is now contractual, Karl can’t claim “no ‘new’ contract is in force”.
No breath wasted. I typed all this silently. 
The OP is confirmed as a rent now landlord so it is reasonable to assume it is the open rent tenancy agreement which I know from experience includes details making it contractual periodic at end of fixed term and has done so for many years…
on that basis, you could assume that I’m a rent now landlord and use the open rent tenancy agreement. And you’d be wrong on both counts. I used rent now very briefly once and have never used their tenancy agreement.
I was using the same temrinology the OP was using, when they said they had sent;
which had not been signed & returned by the tenant. Therefore that specific ‘new’ proposal (contract) was not in force.
I totally appreciate & understand that if a AST rolls into a SPT, then that is considered a new contract. I was not arguing against this fact. That said Im not aware of why that would affect the Landlords ability to issue a S21 notice.
Are you suggesting that if the AST has rolled into a SPT, rather than a CPT, then the ability to serve a S21 differs? I’m not challenging you on this. I’m genuinigly not aware that is the case, having never needed to know.
Not the ability to serve an S21 but the notice period you need to leave to make it valid.