Giving notice to landlord when buying a home

KayPoole

I'm a first time buyer, currently buying a unoccupied house with no chain.

I have been in my rented house for 12 years. I moved into the house 14th June and pay rent on the anniversary of this date. However, when my husband moved in with me the landlord issued a new tenancy dated 01/09/2009. My questions are:

1. Do we have to hand notice to the landlord on the date that we pay rent, the 1st of the month, or can we do it on any day as long as we give a month's notice.

2. The mortgage has just been accepted and the vendor has requested exchange and completion on the same day. Should we wait for exchange before handing notice to landlord. We have a very good relationship with them but have not informed them that we have been buying in case things went bad.

Thanks in advance for any advice

Hasbeen

KayPoole said:

I'm a first time buyer, currently buying a unoccupied house with no chain.

I have been in my rented house for 12 years. I moved into the house 14th June and pay rent on the anniversary of this date. However, when my husband moved in with me the landlord issued a new tenancy dated 01/09/2009. My questions are:

1. Do we have to hand notice to the landlord on the date that we pay rent, the 1st of the month, or can we do it on any day as long as we give a month's notice.

2. The mortgage has just been accepted and the vendor has requested exchange and completion on the same day. Should we wait for exchange before handing notice to landlord. We have a very good relationship with them but have not informed them that we have been buying in case things went bad.

Thanks in advance for any advice

New agreement from the first of the month.

What does your new rental agreement say about notice period?

pinkteapot

Usual advice is don't hand in notice until exchange or you risk ending up homeless. Unfortunately, as simultaneous exchange and completion is the norm at the moment, that will mean a chunk of wasted cash on rent. You just have to look on it as part of the costs of moving.

Only consider handing in notice before exchange if you've got a very solid plan of where you and your belongings can go when the tenancy ends if the house is delayed or has fallen through. 

greatcrested

KayPoole said:

.... when my husband moved in with me the landlord issued a new tenancy dated 01/09/2009. My questions are:

1. Do we have to hand notice to the landlord on the date that we pay rent, the 1st of the month, or can we do it on any day as long as we give a month's notice.

2. The mortgage has just been accepted and the vendor has requested exchange and completion on the same day. Should we wait for exchange before handing notice to landlord. We have a very good relationship with them but have not informed them that we have been buying in case things went bad.

Thanks in advance for any advice

Your current tenancy started on 1/9/90.

1) That depends if you have signed any repeat contracts (eg annually) or if your tenancy is 'periodic' ie rolling.

If periodic, it also depends if it is a Contractual Periodic Tenancy, or a Statutory Periodic Tenancy. Read the contract, and also this stickie here:

Post 4: 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?

2) You should not serve notice till you Exchage Contracts. Until then, you cannot know what date you willComlete your purchase (there are 76 possible reasons for it to be delayed), or even if the purchase will collapse (another 23 possible reasons).

That means either a gap between Exchange and Completion, and/or an overlap paying rent as well as mortgage.

iampetesmith

You shouldn't give notice until you've exchanged, so in your case it will be when you've completed as well. You'll just have to pay both rent and mortgage for a month, but you'll also have access to both houses so it will be easier to move. If you haven't gone far, you can move everything yourself over a few weeks so save a bit of money on removal costs which is what we did. It's also easier to get new furniture ordered, as you can still sleep in the old place for a bit if you have to wait for a new bed or anything.