My tenant has just emailed me to say she is giving me 6 weeks notice (but could extend this to 2 months notice). She is 10 months into a 2 year fixed tenancy agreement. She has said that she realises as she is breaking the tenancy agreement she will will forgoe her deposit. As aways its a shock when a tenant gives notice and it really creates an issue for us as the timeline is really inconvenient for us to be able to check out/re-fresh property/get new tenants etc. Before I respond to her email I wanted to make sure that the deposit would be released to me from the Open Rent deposit scheme if these are the terms I have accepted in her breaking her tenancy agreement. Thanks for any advice.
Firstly, you dont need to agree if you dont want to. You can hold her to the full term of rent and other obligations whether she is living there or not. This is often harder in practice than in theory as you would have to pursue her through the courts if she doesnt pay and if she has to move for work, for example, and doesnt have the money to pay for two rents, the court would likely award you a token weekly payment such as £10, thereby taking decades to repay the debt.
Its a bad idea to try to lock people in to 2+ year contracts. As you can see, in practice this is a one sided contract only binding the landlord.
Id suggest you take some proper advice on how to end her tenancy since any notice she serves will be invalid. There are also limits to what you can charge, but she should pay any rent and release fee in the normal way, not ask you to take it from the deposit.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.