Hi, I am preparing for May the 1st and obviously I am studying the whole thing in preparation. After May the 1st the tenant can give 2 months notice to quit. The question I am asking both landlords and tenants is how do you think that is going to work?
For instance waiting a month for a selected tenant is ok I can live with that, but two months would be too long, there are utility bill and council tax issues surely?
The other way of doing it would be immediately a tenant gives notice you advertise the house and show people around whilst the tenant is in situ! I always find this problematic as most tenant become uncooperative once notice is given and secondly quite often I wouldnāt want to show potential tenants around some of the houses as the tenants live rather unconventionally (polite expression).
Any new to the system tenants would be at a massive advantage, although they are at an advantage now of course.
I covered this subject with an agent, who is also a tenant, she qualified it by āthe tenant would give notice then start lookingā which I thought was madness, and pointed out with supply tightening (in my area it is tightening en masse) how could a tenant do that with any confidence?
Either Landlords will be forced to wait for new tenants to move in, or tenants will be forced to pay for two properties if the Landlord wonāt wait. Itāll depend on supply & demand in any area.
I think you raise a good point Alan50. If landlords are tempted to allow tenants to leave sooner than 2 months, either by making it shorter contractually or through a deed of surrender, they may then find that they have to wait 2 months for new tenants to be available. This is an ill considered aspect of the new legislation in my view.
I think itās going to cause huge issues and it also shows how out of touch some letting agents are. I mean, what tenant is going to give notice first and then start looking for somewhere to move to?
Iām a landlord (currently) and also a tenant and when we viewed the house we rent now we had a conversation with the letting agent and they were quite rude about the fact weād not given notice to our previous landlord before viewing their property. I did point out that no-one in their right mind would do it the other way around.
We had to fight hard to get the letting agent to hold the house for 2 weeks (from being accepted by LL) as there was no way they were going to wait a full month for us to give notice so we ended up having to pay rent for two houses.
That situation is only going to get much worse as I honestly cannot see landlords waiting 2 months (or more likely letting agents wait 2 months for their money) but then if that becomes āthe normā, thereās not much anyone can do about it.
Its a max 2 months notice under RRA. Itās the default if not specified in existing AST.
But thereās no reason tenants and LLs cant agree a shorter period. For a lot of tenancies already with rolling 1 month payments and 1 month notice tenants and LLs will expect the 1 month notice will continue. For new tenancies LLs and tenants will choose a notice period exactly as they do now, before signing
So the only tenancies this will affect will be any fixed length ASTs during fixed term and with LLs and tenants who dont bother talking to each other.
Even then, because we will (soon as due in march) have to send tenants an info leaflet (govt has not yet issued) about RRA saying fixed term tenancies are no more, that will lead tenants and LLs to want to discuss and agree what the future notice period will be.
Tenants and LLs may well want greater certainty/security and 2 months notice is a lot less of a penalty to those tenants who have to move through circumstances than a 6 month or 12 month term. In practice we may see a notice period of 2 months initially and LLs and tenants then agree to reduce it to 1 month after say 6 months or a year. Which wouldnt be that different from what we have now. Wouldnt be a bad idea to encourage nrla and openrent to set their new standard TA templates up to allow that to be done easily.
The very small numbers of tenants who were trapped in a fixed term will be able to move more cheaply (instead of negotiating a cost for a deed of surrender to leave early). The rest will move as often as before. As the average tenancy is years most give a months notice at present and I think that will likely stay the norm - to be decided by the market. Fingers crossed.
Thatās nothing to do with the legislation really except that it suggests a max notice. The norm is set by the market not the legislation.
If the notice period now is 1 month say during a periodic tenancy and LL chooses to allow tenant to leave in 1 week itās the LLās commercial decision to let people leave so they can either have someone in the property sooner or at least not have someone there who doesnt want to be. They may well agree with tenant that tenant pays up to the notice period unless the LL finds a new tenant before then, just like now. Same for a fixed term AST at moment. So no real change.
The point is that most landlords will likely just go with the default, which is two months expiring at the end of a tenancy period, so somewhere between two and three months. This will cause issues for landlords on tight margins if they have to keep properties empty for that long. It will also cause issues for tenants who for no fault of their own are rejected in favour of someone who can move sooner.
Hi Thank you for all your replies, and itās very interesting to hear different perspectives, David I think you are correct in your analysis. My experience is that if itās written down in an agreement most tenants will take that as a set in stone legal rule. I know I would say ādo you want to go earlier?ā And they probably will take me up on it, but the perfect tenants I find to replace them wonāt be offered the same deal from their current landlord and I will be left out of pocket.
this is one reason (of many) that we will sell off each property as each tenant gives notice. Canāt be bothered with it any more. There are easier ways to make money.
I agreeā¦. Itās not worth the hassle, I am going to start selling as they become empty and enjoy my retirement, itās a bit earlier than I wanted but I am not setting the agenda.
I can see in my area a lot of landlords doing the same, some are trying to sell as tenanted investments, others are post tenant sales. I think my observations and the CGT receipts are proving many landlords are heading for the exit!