Hi, i have decided to sell my property and having discussed this with my tenant, we have mutually agreed a leave date which is in approx 3 months. This should give the tenant more than enough time to find somewhere and for me to get the property on the market etc. The tenancy became periodic some time ago. Technically they only has to give one month’s notice but i wanted to be sure that giving 3 months notice was legally binding. I’ve looked online and it’s a bit wishy washy to be honest.
So, if for example the tenancy runs from the 2nd of the month to the first, if they were to ‘serve’ notice to end their tenancy on June 1st 2025, that would be fine?
I have also said that should they find the property of their dreams and wanted to leave earlier (e.g. May 1st) that would be fine for me.
Assuming it’s ok to give 3 months’ notice, I assume using a standard tenant notice to quit/leave but saying 3 months rather than 1 month is fine too?
The tenant serving a 3 month notice would be perfectly valid. However, are you sure they will do that? Its not really in their interest to fix a specific date when they have no alternative accommodation lined up.
Hi David, thanks for the reply. It’s great to know that serving a 3 month notice would be valid.
My understanding is that she is actively looking for new accommodation.
Wouldn’t it be the same when serving a 1 month notice? If they serve a notice to quit (1,2 or 3 months) then my understanding is they have to leave or risk court proceedings. Also the tenant cannot unilaterally withdraw the notice to quit. It would have to be agreed by the landlord.
If the tenant finds another property and wants to leave, the landlord is completely entitled to accept whatever notice he deems reasonable. If the tenant came to you and said they have found somewhere and can move tomorrow, and you were fine with that, then that’s perfectly acceptable.
What I wouldn’t expect a tenant to do, is give notice until they’ve found somewhere to move to, so I think it’s unlikely the tenant would agree to formally give 3 months notice.
So, you have two options. You can serve the tenant with a Section 21 giving the 3 months notice (legally has to be at least 2 months notice but cannot be any longer than 6 months), or just wait to see if the tenant finds somewhere and agree a mutually acceptable termination date.
The problem with waiting on the tenant is that if they don’t find somewhere or get fed up of looking, you could end up being forced to serve notice further down the line therefore delaying things.
We were selling a house a couple of years ago that had tenants in while it was up for sale. Once we found a buyer we had to provide our solicitor with a signed form from our tenants that they would move out before either exchange or completion (can’t quite remember).
Thanks gazfocus. A section 21 notice was served by me Feb 10th 2025 (2 month’s notice) as that’s when i decided i plan to sell.
Formal notice by the tenant of a move out date of June 1st (or before) has been given.
I think that covers all bases?
Of course if the tenant then refused to abide by their notice to leave it would become a court matter but the section 21 notice would still be valide i think?
Ok so if I’m understanding correctly, you served a section 21 to the tenant on 10th February 2025 asking them to vacate by 10th April 2025 and they subsequently gave you notice that they will move by 1st June 2025?
If that’s correct, technically speaking, their notice doesn’t trump yours so they should be making every effort to move out by 10th April. If you want to let them stay longer, you need to give them an extension to the original notice period in writing to ensure the original section 21 remains valid, you just need to make sure they extension doesn’t take you past 6 months from the date you issued the section 21.
Hi again gazfocus, yes that’s correct - i gave them a date of April 12th just to cover myself re dates etc…
I’m happy to help my tenant out by allowing them up to June 1st to vacate.
We will document all of this via the openrent portal messaging service. I would like to think that the messages via openrent would be sufficient but am happy to put the extension confirmation in a letter/email to the tenant if that would be the safer option.
The 6 months period from the serving of the Section 21 notice would take us up to August 10th - a good 2 months after the date in the notice to leave from the tenant.
Cheers.
Three months is a good time for someone to find a place. Remember the more time you give them the more time. They’ll just wait to find the perfect place and they may not find it which means you’ll end up waiting a considerable time. When they leave, I assume you’re going to decorate and smarten it up?
You really need it on the market for May because it could take several months to find a buy and even then a high percentage of purchases collapse.