Renting - leaving notice period

jasonchan93

So I'm moving out and I need to give my landlord my leaving notice period. My tenancy agreement says 1 month, but 5 months later my landlord sent an email there has been 'a minor change' and either party would have to serve 6 weeks notice.
I've been living here for a year and the initial 6 month period has passed and so I'm on a month running contract.

In my tenancy agreement it says:

7. SPECIAL TENANCY CONDITIONS 7.1 Mutual Break – One Month Notice After The First Six Months 7.1.1 The Tenant or the Landlord or both may terminate this Tenancy by serving Notice ("Break Notice") on the other The Break Notice must be at least one month prior written notice to expire. The Break Notice must be given in writing and served in accordance with this Tenancy (see paragraph (m) of the General Tenancy Conditions). 7.1.2 Following service of the Break Notice this Tenancy shall terminate on the Break Date without prejudice to any right or remedy that either party may have in relation to any antecedent breach or non-observance of the Tenancy.

The email said:
Hi All
I hope all is going well
I would like to notify you that there will be a minor change to our terms and conditions re notice period - from 1st of December 2016, if either of party (me or you) would like to end the tenancy, will have to serve 6 weeks notice.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions


Note - I didn't reply to accept or decline.
Do I need to give 1 months notice or 6 weeks?

Thanks!

Pixie5740

Your landlord cannot unilaterally change the terms of your tenancy agreement. Nor can he trump your statutory rights as a tenant.

If you have a Statutory Periodic Assured Shorthold Tenancy and you pay your rent monthly you need to give one rental period of notice.

Here's a link to G_M's guide to 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?

G_M

So you are quoting 2 possibilities for what you believe your notice requirement to be:

1) One month, as per clause 7

or

2) 6 weeks, as per the email.

Both are wrong and should be ignored!

1) above is a Break Clause, and only applies during the initial Fixed Term (hence the use of the word 'break' as in breaking the contract early). As your fixed term has ended, this clause no longer applies

2) the email can only be binding on you if you agree to it. One side of an existing contract cannot change the terms of a contract unilaterally. Since you did not agree, you can ignore the email.

So the answer? You now have a Monthly Statutory Periodic Tenancy, which runs from month to month. You must give notice = to a full period ie a month ending with a period (so depending on timing this could be 1 month or nealy 2 months.

What exact date did your fixed term start/end?

Ending/renewing an AST

jasonchan93

Start : 25/06/16
End 31/12/16

GrumpyDil

That doesn't look right as if it started 25/06 I'd expect the end date to be 24/12 if a six month tenancy.

G_M

jasonchan93 wrote: »

Start : 25/06/16
End 31/12/16

But earlier you said:

I've been living here for a year and the initial 6 month period has passed

As GrumpyDil says, 6 months from 25/6/16 is 24/12/16

In terms of the notice you need to give, it makes a big difference. The exact date is important.

Please check.

jasonchan93

Ahh yeah, I paid the 'extra' dates between 25th - 31st June and then the 6 month contract started

G_M

OK.

So your tenancy periods now run monthly from the 1st day of each month to the last day of each month.

Your notice must expire on the last day of a month, and include an entire month.

So if you served notice tomorrow (17 July) your notice would expire on 31st August (ie about 6 weeks).

If you served notice on 31st July your notice would still expire on 31st August (ie about 4 weeks).

If you served notice on 2nd August your notice would expire on 30th Sept (ie about 8 weeks).

jasonchan93

Well it says:
4 THE TERM
A term of Six Calendar Months
From and including the 25.06.2016
To and including the 31.12.2016
5 THE RENT
The calendar monthly rent of £650 only and all the bills are included in the monthly
rent.
PAYABLE
The sum of £130 payable on 25th of June 2016 for 6 days in June and the sum of £650
payable calendar monthly in advance on 1st July 2016 and the 1st day of each calendar
month thereafter throughout the term of the tenancy the first of which is to be paid to...

Thanks for the help by the way!

G_M

Who on earth gets to draft these stupid contracts!

I think the intention is clear, though why they included the totally unecessary, and misleading initial term is beyond me:

A term of Six Calendar Months

They should have excluded that and just provided the start and end dates.