My tenant has a fixed 12 month contract, now just over 6 months she bought her own house and wishes to move out, which is fine.
On the contract, she needs to give 2 months notice, but she only give me one month notice. Now she moved out, I need to secure a new tenant.
Now open rent ask me if I want to “end tenancy”, but legally the tenancy is ended as her notice period is 2 months. Although she has given me the keys .
What do I do now? Do I agree to end the tenancy? I’d like the deposit to cover the second month rent unless I found a new tenant immediately.
the notice period expiring does not end the tenancy. If you accepted the notice and the keys, you have effectively ended it. I would not have accepted the keys until I had written agreement that the deposit could be claimed for the remaining 1 month notice owed. Have you asked her whether she will agree to forfeit the deposit to cover the remaining month? You can claim the deposit for this when you return it, but she may challenge your claim saying that you agreed to this and accepted keys after 1 month. Do you have anything in writing to prove that this was not ok with you?
Don’t mix Openrent ‘end tenancy’ with any legal way of ending the tenancy. Its just an admin exercise to close it down on openrent,so you can process the end of tenancy admin such as deposit, re-letting etc.
I have WhatsApp conversation telling her that she must give two months notice. But I did received the keys back as I am taking viewings. Thank you for your reply.
If she has already left and you have keys, you should release the deposit. You can do so with a claim for the entire amount in lieu of unpaid rent. She might challenge this claim and there’s a chance that her challenge will be upheld. Good luck!
If youve accepted the keys then unless you were very specific in writing about only taking them for safe-keeping and not that you were accepting that the tenancy is at an end, then the tenancy will almost certainly have ended on that date and you will not be due any further rent.