"New" tenancy agreement - s21 notice? And does deposit need to be re-protected?

Dolly_Dimple

Hello all,

I've been living in my current flat for a year (since last August); my housemate put on the tenancy as a 'permitted occupant' as she'd just moved to the country. In February, the management of the property was taken over from the landlord by a property management company.

Housemate moved out at the beginning of August, and my bf moved in; I'd told the management company back in June that this was going to happen, and asked if it would be possible for them to amend the name of the permitted occupant on the tenancy agreement. Instead, they wanted to issue a new tenancy agreement. Fair enough; the only problem that my bf and I plan to be leaving the country at the end of June, and so I asked if it might be possible for us to have a 6-month AST, rather than 12 months, with the possibility of it rolling on as a periodic tenancy until the end of June. (I've been a decent tenant, so I didn't think that was a wildly unreasonable request.)

The agent agreed to the 6-month tenancy, and sent out a new agreement. However, the copies for me to sign came with a s21 notice giving two dates: "After 29 August 2010" and "Dated 28 February 2011". I'm not sure exactly what this means? Does that mean that 28 February is the date of expiry of the notice? Does it mean that they can/will kick us out by 28 February with no further notice? We didn't receive one of these notices when we had the tenancy agreement with the landlord directly, so I'm new to this. Obviously we'd prefer to stay until June - trying to find somewhere new to stay for 4 months would be a pain, to say the least... (I realise that they're not required to accede to our preference for a periodic tenancy after that date, but that was what I explained to the agent that we'd need, so I'd hoped that the landlord would be OK with that; this notice suggests otherwise.)

Also, we (finally - at the beginning of last week!) received the certificate of deposit protection relating to the deposit paid last August; if it's a new agreement (and it's completely new - the terms are somewhat different from the one we had last year), would the deposit need to be re-protected in a scheme? And if so, would that mean that the s21 notice was invalid because it had been issued prior to the deposit being protected in a scheme?

Thanks for reading!

G_M

Yes.
The S21 is invalid for 2 reasons. It cannot be served before the tenancy is in place and this is clearly a new tenancy since there are new names on it. Nor can it be served before the deposit is protected.

So simply ignore it. If they rely on it at some time in the future they will find out their error

BTW - has the LL changed?

Dolly_Dimple

No, it's still the same landlord, as far as I can tell - the landlord is a property company (though the person in charge of that company has changed in the last year - think it's his wife or daughter).

Just to ask - the tenant (ie me) hasn't changed, just the permitted occupant. So they can't just 'roll on' the deposit protection from the previous agreement? They have to re-protect and issue a new deposit protection certificate?

G_M

Sorry. I'd assumed the new contract was to be in joint names:

I'd told the management company back in June that this was going to happen, and asked if it would be possible for them to amend the name of the permitted occupant on the tenancy agreement. Instead, they wanted to issue a new tenancy agreement.

If the tenant's name has not changed, and LL's name has not changed, then it is basically the same tenancy continuing, with a new fixed term. the existing deposit can be rolled onto the new fixed term contract and the S21 is valid.

Dolly_Dimple

Ah, ok, ta. So if they send us the s21 notice along with the unsigned tenancy agreement (which does have somewhat different terms to the previous agreement), and ask me to sign it and send it back to them, would that constitute valid service of the enclosed s21 agreement, given that it had been in effect served prior to my signing the agreement?

Sorry for all the questions, and thank you for your patience!

tbs624

The LL is being foolish.

As a T you don't *have* to sign a s21 form, or an acknowledgement for service of one.

The LL, however, needs to be able to clearly show that the s21 was served (a) after tenancy deposit was registered and (b) after you have signed the relevant tenancy agreement. They should have waited at least a day after you had signed the tenancy agreement and sent the s21 out separately.

It's up to you whether you want to let them know of their error: many Ts would not, as it gives you the opportunity to get a minimum of the full 2 months' notice rather than being subject to the Sword of Damocles ( search FrankLee's posts on here on the topic)