giving notice to landlord please help advise

patchtruska

Hi
Can anyone help with a problem i have. I have just told my landlord that i want to move out of my flat on 1st april. this means i am giving him 5 weeks notice.
However. he says that he wants 60 Days notice. i have been living here for 1 Year and Six months the current contract is a fixed agreement for a one year period and expires on 29th august i pay monthly by direct debt. he says that if i move out on the 31st march he will keep 4 weeks of a 6 week deposit that i paid. :mad:
is there anyway i can stop him doing this.

prudryden

What does your tenancy agreement say? If it doesn't say anything about notice, then you can give one month notice. However, if the agreement says two months notice, he can try and hold you to that.

RabbitMad

If you have a fixed term contract there might be nothing to allow you out early, and therefore by allowing you to give 60-day's notice the landlord is being nice.

november

If your agreement was for a fixed term which expires on 29th August 2006 you could have, technically speaking, left on the last day of the fixed term without giving notice. However if you stay even one day over the fixed term then it becomes a periodic tenancy and you have to give the landlord one month's notice (usually assuming the tenancy runs monthly e.g. you pay rent monthly). Note - It is usually a good idea to give your landlord written notice anyway.

Assuming yours is now a periodic monthly tenancy you should give one month's notice which must end on the day the rent is due or the day before. So one month's notice to 29th March (the first date before the 1st April) would have to be given to the landlord in writing by 28th February. Landlords can put longer notice in tenancy agreements but legislation (one month's notice) overrules any such conditions.

However I'm not sure if your fixed term expires on 29th August 2007. If this is the case you are liable for rent until this date. If the landlord agrees to release you from your fixed term contract prior to this date then you will need to negotiate with him so he can ask for 5 weeks notice and in fact doesn't have to release you from the tenancy at all.

patchtruska

Thanks for replying so fast
I think you are all correct. i feel i will have too give up 4weeks of my deposit.:mad:
I really need to move as i have found an ideal house for my family.
I hope if the landlord finds new tennants by the time we leave he may give me the full deposit back. so here's hoping. and once again thanks for your rapid responses:o

prudryden

RabbitMad wrote:

If you have a fixed term contract there might be nothing to allow you out early, and therefore by allowing you to give 60-day's notice the landlord is being nice.

Correct. I was in a hurry and answered too quickly. My contracts have an Early Termination Clause in them, so I just answered on that basis wrongly.
Sorry Patch.

I do not believe what the other poster said in that legislation allowing one month notice overrides a mutual agreement to give two months notice. The legislation I believe says minimum one month.

thesaint

The landlord has to mitigate his losses, he cannot simply say "You did not give the correct notice, so I am keeping your money". He can charge you for extra advertising costs etc brought on by you ending the tenancy early.

For example, if you were to leave on the 31st March, he got someone in on the 7th April, he would have no reason to keep the money you paid for the rest of April.