Tenant wanting to stay in property after the tenancy has ended. Advice please!

BitterAndTwisted

Cloo: have you served your tenant with a Section 21 Notice?

If so, if you don't want to risk it becoming invalid once the notice-period has ended you must not agree for the tenant to stay on beyond when the notice-period expired. This could mean that you'd have to re-serve your notice and wait yet another two months before you could apply to the court for possession.

cloo

thesaint wrote: »

You should not have given them extra time. You have been poorly advised on here.
You can start the court process based on their notice. I hope it was valid.

I haven't... she has asked (via text) about it. I have not yet replied and plan at most to say I will call her after the weekend.

She has been served a valid sec21 over a month ago, which she has acknowledged.

Bitter&Twisted, I was wondering whether serving a second notice at the end of the period might be a better way to cover my back? But presumably I can't say in advance that I'll do that.

I guess my question is, if she asks me whether she can stay longer, must my answer be a flat 'No'?

The fact is, I may just have to be hard nosed about it on the 'give them an inch and they'll take a mile...' principle. She's once or twice asked a little too much of me, knowing I'm very easygoing, but she's backed down when I've said 'no' to her.

thesaint

cloo wrote: »

I haven't... she has asked (via text) about it. I have not yet replied and plan at most to say I will call her after the weekend.

She has been served a valid sec21 over a month ago, which she has acknowledged.

Bitter&Twisted, I was wondering whether serving a second notice at the end of the period might be a better way to cover my back? But presumably I can't say in advance that I'll do that.

I guess my question is, if she asks me whether she can stay longer, must my answer be a flat 'No'?

The fact is, I may just have to be hard nosed about it on the 'give them an inch and they'll take a mile...' principle. She's once or twice asked a little too much of me, knowing I'm very easygoing, but she's backed down when I've said 'no' to her.

Are you also Oxid8uk?

cloo

No, I'm a separate poster hijacking the thread

BitterAndTwisted

cloo wrote: »

I haven't... she has asked (via text) about it. I have not yet replied and plan at most to say I will call her after the weekend.

She has been served a valid sec21 over a month ago, which she has acknowledged.

Bitter&Twisted, I was wondering whether serving a second notice at the end of the period might be a better way to cover my back? But presumably I can't say in advance that I'll do that.

I guess my question is, if she asks me whether she can stay longer, must my answer be a flat 'No'?

The fact is, I may just have to be hard nosed about it on the 'give them an inch and they'll take a mile...' principle. She's once or twice asked a little too much of me, knowing I'm very easygoing, but she's backed down when I've said 'no' to her.

In reality, if you don't acknowledge that she can stay on after the S21's two months expires, you could hold off applying to the court for possession if you wanted to give the tenant a bit of extra time to make alternative arrangements.

It could take a couple of months to secure a court-date in any case.

My own feeling is that you should give every appearance of intending to secure possession at the earliest opportunity. Doing anything else could risk the tenant still being in situ by July or longer.

starfish_chimp

What difference does it make to LL?


Tenant paying rent and happy, and waiting to move hopefully imminently.


I suppose the worst could happen - though not sure what you think that is, as you will hopefully only have to wait a bit longer about selling your property and in the meantime are still getting rent. Just be clear about this to tenant and keep relationship cordial but honest. You can evict if you need to at any time in the future. Note Bitter & Twisted's name, if you take his advice ...

cloo

B&T Yeah, I'm wondering about something like that - but I'd like to find a way, which I know might be impossible, of not worrying her that I'm going to do something drastic.

Maybe I could tell her that I will apply for an eviction order at the end of the notice, but add that it would take several months anyway. I presume there's nothing to stop me telling her that she would still have breathing space when I do that. Then I guess I'm covered, and she doesn't have too much to worry about, as she has a lot on her plate even aside from having to move, so I don't want to pile on the stress.