When to give AST notice?

RAS

Well as far as I am aware there is no legal basis for the document you have under current legislation governing England and Wales.

At the end of a fixed term either you sign a new fixed term contract for a specific period (does you supplementry contract have an end date?) or the tenancy becomes periodic which means one month's notice is required from you and two from the LL, in line with tenancy dates.

G_M

There are two possibilities:

1) this 'supplementry contract' is in fact a new 12 month Fixed Term contract. If so, the clause you quote could be seen as a break clause, or could be an unenforcible term. Hard to be sure.

2) this 'supplementry contract' is in fact a meaningless piece of paper, in which case you have a Periodic Tenancy and need to give one full Tenancy Period notice,not 2 months (see below)

See also:
Ending/Renewing an AST (what happens when the Fixed Term ends?)(What is a Periodic Tenancy?)(How can a LL remove a tenant?)(How can a tenant end a tenancy?)

Best advice is to discuss with landlord, reach amicable agreement, and confirm said agreement in writing.

lukecooper

Just spoken to letting agents, two months notice can be given at any time which is good (ish) news. Shame it's not one month!

Thanks for all the help everyone.
Luke

thesaint

lukecooper wrote: »

Just spoken to letting agents, two months notice can be given at any time which is good (ish) news. Shame it's not one month!

Thanks for all the help everyone.
Luke

You will probably find that you only need to give the usual one months notice expiring at the end of a tenancy period.

The agent has fooled you into believing that you don't have any statutory rights and have to give two, whilst there obligation has not doubled to four months, but remains at two.

I will give £50 to a charity of your choice if this is not the case.

ValHaller

RAS wrote: »

Well as far as I am aware there is no legal basis for the document you have under current legislation governing England and Wales.

At the end of a fixed term either you sign a new fixed term contract for a specific period (does you supplementry contract have an end date?) or the tenancy becomes periodic which means one month's notice is required from you and two from the LL, in line with tenancy dates.

The legal basis would be contract law. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because the agreement does not have full statutory underpinning it definitely has no legal effect.

lukecooper

Hi,

I have an update to my situation- this week the mortgage offer was released! So happy and just a bit relieved :-D

I've accepted that I will have to give two months notice. Whether there is a basis to challenge the two months in the "supplementary agreement" or not, I know many of the employees from this agency on both a personal and a professional level, and do not want to cause problems or damage these relationships.

The quandary I have is- now that I have the formal mortgage offer, should I give notice prior to exchange of contracts in order to minimise the inevitable overlap. To me it seems that the chances of things going wrong are pretty minimal (no chain, shared ownership through housing assoc, house has now been built and finished ready for occupation), and do I take this risk to minimise the overlap, or wait for exchange of contracts. The HA stated that completion must occur within 10 days of contracts being exchanged- which means 6 weeks of paying both rent and mortgage- I can think of many things I could spend this £1000 or so on for my new place. Lettings agent say that if they find someone within the two months who want to move as soon as poss, that they could break the contract sooner which I suppose is something.

Any thoughts?
Luke

Calleja

I'm in a similar position, currently renting and don't want too much overlap between handing in my notice on the rented flat and being able to move into a new house (which is still VERY early days for me yet...) Do you have friends you could stay with? I know its not ideal, but I looked into the cost of storage and hiring a van twice (once to move stuff into storage and once to move stuff from storage to new house) and it came up with plenty left over to offer the friend some cash for the inconvenience and some pennies left to play with. Assuming your friends are a bit flexible, the arrangement can be for as long as you need it to be and no longer and the added bonus is that you will also have received back your deposit which will be helpful for the first few days in the new house.

I'm still not sure whether I will take this route or, for convenience, stay with my flat and take the hit in rental and mortgage payments intially, but its worth consideration.

G_M

Do not give notice till you have Exchanged Contracts.

there are many reasons why you may have to delay, or even cancel, your purchase.

there are even more reasons why the seller may delay, or cancel, his sale to you!

Only after Exchange can you be sure.

lukecooper

Thank you for the replies :-)

No worries about being 'homeless' if it came to it- my folks live in next door village and have plenty of room for my stuff in outbuildings and spare room I can stay in. The risk is as G_M says- there being a problem with the sale and it falling through for whatever reason, and then I have lost my lovely (and relatively cheap) rented cottage as well. Given that this is a newbuild though, I can't imagine that there would be too much to worry about. I think however, my head is telling me to wait as you say. Although my heart has already spent that money on a fridge freezer and a washing machine!! Never mind- I think I'll just have to write off that extra rent as a cost of moving.