Amendments to tenancy agreement via email ok?

supersaiyan

I want to amend a tenancy agreement so that I do not have to pay the second 6 months up front, as I did the first.

If I get the landlord's agreement to pay monthly from the 6 month mark on, is his agreement in email enough or do I need to write up a new tenancy agreement and get him to sign it?

I'm sure he'll agree as otherwise I'll just end the contract early via the break clause.

Thanks

G_M

Was your initial tenancy for a fixed term? How long? I assume 12 months or more since you mention a Break Clause.

What exactly does the tenancy agreement say regarding rent? Does it refer to a monthly amount, or to a 6 monthly amount? Does it say 'paid monthly' or 'paid 6 monthly'?

Exact words please.

I would suggest a signed letter, but provided the landlord is happy and has agreed I don't really see the problem.

supersaiyan

It is 12 months with a 2 month notice break clause.

It says first 6 months rent paid up front and the second 6 months paid at the half year mark.

Well I don't think he'd be 'happy' in that he'd much prefer to be paid 6 months up front as that's what he was expecting. The main reason I want to change it is it's taken him 4 months to replace a dodgy boiler. We had no leverage to pay for the repair ourselves as we'd paid rent up front. I'm not willing to go through that stress again, so I will say monthly or I quit.

I just don't want the stress of not having it legally binding should he be sneaky about it.

So you think email consent is sufficient?

HappyMJ

supersaiyan wrote: »

It is 12 months with a 2 month notice break clause.

It says first 6 months rent paid up front and the second 6 months paid at the half year mark.

Well I don't think he'd be 'happy' in that he'd much prefer to be paid 6 months up front as that's what he was expecting. The main reason I want to change it is it's taken him 4 months to replace a dodgy boiler. We had no leverage to pay for the repair ourselves as we'd paid rent up front. I'm not willing to go through that stress again, so I will say monthly or I quit.

I just don't want the stress of not having it legally binding should he be sneaky about it.

So you think email consent is sufficient?

It's a fixed term contract. The landlord cannot terminate the contract until the end of the fixed term or by activating the break clause before the initial 6 month term is up. Once you've gone one day into the next 6 month period as long as you pay your rent monthly you will never be two months in arrears and you cannot be evicted.

So...pay the monthly rent on the first day of the 7th month and you'll be fine. If you pay a day earlier during the initial 6 month term the landlord might see that and activate the break clause and give you two months notice.

The landlord could try other means to get you out but it is unlikely and in any case that would take around 6 months. If the landlord wanted to give you notice for not paying the rent in full then you would get almost 3 months notice for not paying the 6 months rent in full on the first day of month 7 then court action can't commence until the notice has expired and takes quite a long time.

I wouldn't bother with the emails and just pay monthly.

supersaiyan

I'm not worried about him terminating the contract, I'm worried about him using the fact that we hadn't paid the second 6 months upfront as a reason to keep the deposit.

What I want to know is if I have his written agreement via email, does that supercede the contract or not? Or how do I ensure the agreement is binding?

To be clear the contract states I will pay the second 6 months upfront on 28th July. I don't want to do that, I want to pay monthly from then on. He's agreed via email but I want that binding so he can't go back on his agreement. if email is binding, no worries, if it's not, what is?

Thanks

Miss_Samantha

If he agreed by email it's fine.

G_M

HappyMJ wrote: »

It's a fixed term contract. The landlord cannot terminate the contract until the end of the fixed term or by activating the break clause before the initial 6 month term is up. Once you've gone one day into the next 6 month period as long as you pay your rent monthly you will never be two months in arrears and you cannot be evicted.

So...pay the monthly rent on the first day of the 7th month and you'll be fine. If you pay a day earlier during the initial 6 month term the landlord might see that and activate the break clause and give you two months notice.

The landlord could try other means to get you out but it is unlikely and in any case that would take around 6 months. If the landlord wanted to give you notice for not paying the rent in full then you would get almost 3 months notice for not paying the 6 months rent in full on the first day of month 7 then court action can't commence until the notice has expired and takes quite a long time.

I wouldn't bother with the emails and just pay monthly.

Not so.

Putting aside the fact that the OP has failed to tell us exactly what the contract says as requested, the contract appears to require 6 months payment at the 6 month point.

So by only paying 1 month, the tenant will be in arrears to the value of 5 months rent owed.

The landlord could therefore either

* serve a S8 Notice for rent arrears, or
* activate the Break Clause (depending on its price wording) along with a S21 Notice which would run concurrently with the 2 months notice required by the Break Clause.

However the OP says:

I'm not worried about him terminating the contract, I'm worried about him using the fact that we hadn't paid the second 6 months upfront as a reason to keep the deposit.

The deposit can only be kept by the landlord if rent arrears (or damage etc) exist when the tenancy ends.