Extending my tenancy by 12 months

StarGazer85

Hi there
I have started renting following the sale of my home. I have signed up for 6 months with the original view that I would find a property to purchase in this time. I am now 3 months into the tenancy and really enjoying renting and the house etc. I am planning on phoning up the letting agent tomorrow and asking about the possibility of extending it by 12 months.

I am slightly concerned that this may be an opportunity for the landlord to increase the monthly price - is this likely? I am wondering if there is a 'game' for me to play here? Would you recommend that I just phone up and ask about extending by 12 months or do I need to go down a different route to avoid having to pay more?

Thank you

bowlhead99

In the most common scenario: you probably have an assured shorthold tenancy for not less than six months and then after the six months is up if you continue to pay the rent it continues as a statutory periodic tenancy from month to month; you can give notice of not less than one full rental period to end the tenancy, and if the landlord eventually wants to get rid of you at some point despite you paying the rent and sticking to the terms of the tenancy agreement, he can serve you two months notice (that if you don't leave at the end of the two months, he will petition the court to eventually evict you to get his property back -which could take a few months to get you out).

If he is really desperate to get his property back at the end of the first six months he could give you that two months' notice in about a month from now, to try and end the arrangement ASAP. But unless he has a particular plan to sell the place or to move in himself or move a friend in, he is probably in the landlord game to make money by letting the place out to a reliable tenant; so has no intention of having to go looking for more tenants and have to clean it up and market it and pay more fees to the agency for changing tenants and potentially leave it empty a while before his income restarts, etc etc.

Is there a particular reason you want / need to extend by a full 12 months? Do you need that security of not being able to be asked to leave (e.g. you have young kids or some special needs and won't be able to handle the disruption of moving out to somewhere else)? If you don't have any desperate need to get security of tenure for a whole extra year, then there is no real point of formally 'extending by 12 months' - it's just an excuse for a letting agent to charge you a fee for signing up all the documentation again to guarantee you the 12 months. Realistically you probably don't need that guarantee.

Sure, if you don't have a guarantee, then where the contract allows for it the landlord might at some point say he is giving you notice of a rent increase he'd like to charge you because he might be able to get more from a different tenant. But at that point you can just say you don't want to pay an x% increase, you'd like to pay a y% increase instead or even a 0% increase and stay on in the place so he doesn't need to lose income by it being empty and his agents charging him more tenant-finding fees etc.

So, before you go begging to add a whole fixed year on to your agreement, it is well worth seeing what the tenancy agreement you have signed actually says, as it's probable that without signing any further documentation you can retain the great flexibility of being able to leave at a month's notice if you decide you want to buy or move to another rental, while the landlord has two give you two months to even start the ball rolling on what could be a 6-month-plus eviction process.

saajan_12

Simply put, you probably have a fixed term of 6 months, after which it will roll into a periodic tenancy - why not just stay on?
-> you have the flexibility of serving notice to move (1 tenancy period unless otherwise specified in your contract).
-> the LL can raise the rent or evict but not before serving notice (s13 or 21) and going through a formal process, which is unlikely given most LL's prefer long term tenants.

Mahsroh

Conversely, in the past, I've actually negotiated a DISCOUNT for going on to a 12month contract!


Had the initial 6month term, when it came to renewal I pitched it along the lines of "if I'm prepared to commit to a further 12months rather than just 6, is the landlord prepared to drop the rent?".


It worked!

franklee

In my experience it's usual for a letting agency to start asking what the landlord and tenant want to do about two months before the end of the tenancy. So I would sit tight and see what happens when they open negotiations. If they ask for more you can be disappointed the rent is going up after just six months (yearly is more normal) and offer to sign up for longer if they waive the fee or keep the rent the same etc.

You can argue your case based on your being a proven reliable tenant. the landlord having full occupation which he won't get if changing tenants and also by looking at the price of comparable local rents.

However if the landlord wants to raise the rent there is practicality nothing you can do short of moving.

If he wants his property back there is nothing you can do, apart from some delay so you have to be prepared for a move then too. However it's always worthing knowing what makes a section 21 notice invalid just in case.