In my current tenancy, we first signed our contract as an assured shorthand tenancy. We paid 6 months rent upfront, twice. So for the first year we lived here we paid 6 months, and then 6 months again. We moved in in April 2022 and our contract expired in October 2022. Since April 2023 we have been paying rent monthly and no new contract has been signed. Does this mean we are now on a periodic monthly tenancy? And what are our rights regarding rent increases?
If you didnt get a new contract in October then your tenancy became periodic at that time. As your landlord then demanded a further 6 months rent, it seems that he has either created a periodic tenancy with a 6 month period, not monthly, or he has created a mess and inadvertently taken an unauthorised deposit. It would mean that both his notice and your notice would have to be 6 months long. What does your tenancy agreement say about the period of the tenancy and how you give notice to quit? It might over-ride this. What are you hoping to achieve? It sounds possible that your landlord doesnt know what he’s doing.
Your tenancy agreement would automatically roll on to a statutory periodic tenancy once the fixed term has expired. The terms will be the same as the original fixed term tenancy. The LL can propose a rent increase after the first 12 months and annually going forward. The rent increase to be market rents. Over the past year inflation has been unusually high so don’t be surprised if your LL proposes a double digit percentage rent rise.
My tenancy agreement states that;
Once the contract has expired (after Oct 2022) if we have not received at least one months notice, the tenancy will continue as a contractual periodic tenancy. The periods of this contractual periodic tenancy shall be the same as those for which rent was last payable under the initial fixed term of the tenancy. This periodic tenancy will carry on until you have served the required notice (one month) to terminate the agreement or we serve the required notice or re possess the property under a ground set out in…
To end the contractual continuation tenancy the required notice is written to the other party. The notice must end on the last day of a rental period and must be of sufficient length.
In regards to rent increases my contract states;
We may increase the rent by serving a rent review notice. The rent may not increase by more than 15% through any single rent review.
Any rent review notice must be served in writing and have at least 1 month notice. The notice must state the percentage by which the rent will increase, the new rental amount and the date on which the new rent is payable from.
The initial rent increase may take effect no earlier than the first anniversary of the start of the tenancy . Until a rent increase takes effect we retain the right to increase the rent at the start of any subsequent rental period by serving a rent review notice.
Once a rent increase has occurred, subsequent rent increases may take effect no earlier than the anniversary of the date the last rent increase took effect.
Our rent was increased in April 2023 from £625, to £675, an email was sent stating this however they didn’t say the percentage of the increase and their reasoning for the increase was because of mortgage rate increase and the costs of running their offices.
They have recently tried to increase our rent to £725 for October 2023, not only is this an unfair price and not in line with market value, they cannot increase our rent until at least April 2023 if I understand correctly? They tried to play the whole thing off as a mistake when contacted.
I am trying to understand my rights better now as I do not trust my landlord at all. We want to understand our rights to refuse rent increases whilst ensuring we are safe in our home and not at risk of eviction. We are searching for another property as we don’t want to associate with our landlord but we are confused by our tenancy. My contract also states;
If you give us notice that you are going to leave the property before this agreement has ended, you must pay our reasonable costs for re letting the property and continue to pay the rent in advance for each rent period until a new tenant moves in. We do not have to take the property or the tenancy back from you early unless we want to do so.
So we would like to know if we are actually able to move out at any point as long as the correct notice period is given, without being liable for paying more rent and additional costs.
Our landlords reasoning for demanding 6 months rent upfront twice was because my partner and I are both under 25 years old. We were not made aware that we would have to pay 6 months upfront again in October 2022, only the month before it was due did they tell us this and they said it was necessary for us to pay 6 month upfront for the first year of our tenancy, after that we could pay monthly.
Ok, thanks for the further information. That contract isn’t designed to work with taking large sums in advance without amendment and this has created a mess. It declares that the rental period is the same as the rent payment period for the initial term, in other words, 6-monthly. However, the notice period is stated as monthly. subsequent clauses only confuse matters further because they state that the notice should end at on the last day of a rental period, (in other words the end of the 6 months).
I suspect that your landlord doesn’t understand any of this and would accept a minimum of one month notice from you expiring on the day of the month that is before the day your tenancy began. In other words if your tenancy started on 5 April, your notice should expire on the 4th of a month.
Rent can only be increased annually as you say, so the next time it could increase is April 2024. You should be aware that rents have gone up a lot in the last year. You can’t decline a rent rise as the debt will just accumulate anyway. You may want to check what else is around and check your options nearer the time of the next review.
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