can a tenancy contract be considered renewed without tenants signing it?

Ulfar

Part of contract law is that you cannot make an agreement until all the details have been agreed in full, the OP hasn't stated whether he was advised of the length of the fixed term or whether he agreed to it.

The length of the fixed term is still in doubt, without which what has happened is an agreement in principle but the letting agent haven't followed up with a tenancy agreement as requested to formalise the agreement.

See link :

http://www.contractsandagreements.co.uk/law-and-verbal-agreements.html

nomoneytoday

It's only 2 months different - is it worth an argument over?

rpc

Ulfar wrote: »

Part of contract law is that you cannot make an agreement until all the details have been agreed in full, the OP hasn't stated whether he was advised of the length of the fixed term or whether he agreed to it.

Indeed. I'm assuming that the new fixed term that was discussed actually had a length associated with it and this was what OP verbally agreed to. If it was discussed as a new fixed term, length TBC then there can be no fixed term yet and OP is on a periodic tenancy.

chewmylegoff

You cannot determine whether or not you are bound by the contractual agreement here. Not that I'm saying people above are talking nonsense, they are not, but whether a contract exists or not can only be determined in a court.

However, what you can do is attempt to give notice and see what happens. Say that you didn't sign a new contract and in your view you are entitled to give notice as per it being a statutory periodic tenancy.

The LL may agree to your intepretation, they may not insist that you have created a contract by paying the increased rent (and the managing agent is unlikely to be legally clued up either). So, might be worth just trying it and seeing what happens. Personally if the managing agent is a shower then just go direct to the LL to give notice and go from there.

Worst that can happen is that the LL says "no, you have agreed to a fixed term until December and cannot give notice until then" and then you just continue paying the rent and move out then. I.e. the worst that can happen is that the current status quo is maintained, so this seems like a pretty low-risk approach to me.