Tenancy agreement advice

Ken_Dodds_dads_dogs_dead

Had an unexpected letter recently from the letting agency who dealt with my current abode, stating my 6 month tenancy will be coming to an end in March '17 and to get in touch about renewing etc.

Came as a suprise as I am positive it was a 12 month tenancy I agreed to, so I dug out the draft tenancy agreement that was emailed to me prior to signing a physical copy, and as expected it stated a 12 month tenancy to end in Sept '17. Letting agent has since emailed me a copy of the one I signed where it seems that it's been changed from the draft to 6 months.

Should I have received an edited draft agreement to show this, or been told? Or is it something I should have picked up when signing?

Pretty miffed with them for doing this TBH and want to know where I stand.

Cheers

silvercar

Do you think it was changed before or after you signed it?

Ken_Dodds_dads_dogs_dead

Before. I'm not suggesting they've changed it afterwards, just questioning whether they should have told me about any changes to the draft they sent me before I signed it?

Seems a bit sneaky sending me both a 12 month draft and tenancy agreement for me to read prior to signing, only to change it on the physical copy before I signed it.

DomRavioli

Ken_Dodds_dads_dogs_dead wrote: »

Before. I'm not suggesting they've changed it afterwards, just questioning whether they should have told me about any changes to the draft they sent me before I signed it?

Seems a bit sneaky sending me both a 12 month draft and tenancy agreement for me to read prior to signing, only to change it on the physical copy before I signed it.

Probably not best practice, but always read before you sign.

Ken_Dodds_dads_dogs_dead

DomRavioli wrote: »

Probably not best practice, but always read before you sign.

Yes probably just my own naivety, but kind of makes a mockery of in the place sending me draft agreements to read through before signing the physical copy, the idea of which I'm led to believe is to save time reading through the many many pages of it when signing/picking up the keys.

Still miffed they've done it, the gits.

G_M

Bit sneaky, and you could raise a fuss if you like, but the onus is on you to read what you sign.

The other lesson to learn is to always keep your own copy of the tenancy agreement. There should be 2 signed copies - one for you one for the LL/agent.

Are they demanding money to renew? If not, there's no real issue.
If yes, you could ask them to waive the fee as part of your 'fuss' and see if they agree.

Or go periodic. For more info on that, read


* Ending/renewing an AST: what happens when a fixed term ends? How can a LL or tenant end a tenancy? What is a periodic tenancy?

barbiedoll

They've probably only changed it to 6 months in order to milk you of more fees and charges.

You should definitely challenge this, if they had made any major changes to the agreement after they sent you the draft, they should have made you aware at the time of signing. Surely the point of a draft is so that you can see your proposed contract and you have time to consider whether or not you want to sign. Any fundamental changes should have been pointed out to you.

If they give you grief, contact the landlord directly. You may find that he/she isn't even aware that you're on a 6 month lease, after all, they're not going to benefit from the renewal of tenancy charges, are they?

Does it say anything about rent increases? You may have a nasty surprise there too!

FBaby

I expect agency give standard 12 months, so that's what they went with, then LL read and said they wanted 6 months (even more likely they had told the agent from the start, but agent forgot!), hence the amendment. You would indeed have thought that the agent would have told you, but you might have then complained about it which could have delayed the process, which means that they might have had to come clean to LL and admit they didn't inform you sooner....