Landlord wants rent 2 months early to secure next years contract

G_M

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Sale and rent back schemes are regulated by FCA. There are certain rules they must follow, one of which is giving the vendor/tenant a fixed term tenancy of 5 years. Whether that's Assured or Assred Shorthold I don't know.

and of course for a tenancy greater than 3 years it should be created via a Deed.

jjlandlord

We don't know the details of the deal OP was involved in, including if it was with a regulated firm.
Even if it was with a regulated firm, (after a bit of Googling) there does not seem to be any rule that the tenancy be a plain assured tenancy, though the AST should indeed be a 5 year fixed term.

Yet, there are 2 pages of comments on that issue.

Annisele

I'm not an expert in this, but I think the tenancy here could be an AST - it doesn't have to be an assured tenancy.

I say that based on 14.4A of PERG (particularly Q37V, which talks about when the AST ends after five years). PERG is just guidance though, and I can't find a rule or bit of statute on the point.

kellyjo70

Well the update is that they didn't come round this evening (They were held up by contractors), however I called them and they said that the contract stays the same as it is now except one clause which states when the contract is valid from. He is going to email it to me to look over and then make arrangements for a day in the week to bring over the original for me to sign and transfer funds.


In the meantime, I am going to dig out this years one (Which is buried under a mountain of paperwork about the house sale in a storage box for safe keeping) and see what type of agreement it is.

jjlandlord

They would be dumb to have created a plain assured tenancy.

Guest101

Assuming JJ is right, as I wasn't sure initially on this. The OP has a 5 year fixed term AST?

So no need for a new contract?

G_M

kellyjo70 wrote: »

..... they said that the contract stays the same as it is now except one clause which states when the contract is valid from. .

???????????/

So what happened to the 'free 13th month' you were offered?

If the monthly rent is the same, and there is no clause saying month 1 (or month 13, or month 8) is free, then you've been duped.

Unless you original tenancy stated an annual rent, and by changing the dates they plan to charge the same amount for a 13 month period.

In that case (annual rent), all sorts of complications follow. Don't go there.

jjlandlord

Guest101 wrote: »

Assuming JJ is right, as I wasn't sure initially on this.

Why didn't you spent a few minutes checking your facts before posting?
That's what I did as I had no idea about that issue.

Guest101

jjlandlord wrote: »

Why didn't you spent a few minutes checking your facts before posting?
That's what I did as I had no idea about that issue.

I did caveat it by asking someone to correct me, which you did.

The OP seemed to be in a rush and I was just about to walk out the door myself. - I didn't claim it to be fact.

hostie

I think the first thing is to find out which kind of tenancy you have and make sure you don't inadvertently sign anything that changes your position from one kind of tenancy to another, less secure one.

Personally, if you don't have much money, I wonder why you are planning to pay a year up front at all. Lots can happen in a year and you may wish to move for reasons you can't possibly foresee now. In that instance, you would get no refund so think carefully before you hand over all your hard earned cash.

Wouldn't the money be better in an account in your name, earning you interest? Is it really worth it for the complicated 'free month'.

I am a landlord. I would LOVE it if someone would pay a year's rent in advance. It is pretty unheard of. They are not going to want you to leave anyway because they would have to start paying agency fees and also they may have a period with no-one in the property so they may also lose out on rent.

You are in a very strong position. I'm sure you could be a little assertive and say that you do not want to sign a new contract and would rather stay on the contract you have on a rolling basis.