Currently Renting - looking to purchase in about 9 months time but looking for flexibility

Gsharp93

I think it is pertinent to provide a little bit of background. My girlfriend & I are currently renting a one bedroom flat together in North London, we signed the asssured shorthold tenancy agreement in August 2019. The contract is a 12 month contract and is due to expire in August 2020. The estate agent and the landlord are pressing us to renew the contract now and discussions / negotiations are ongoing. In my opinion, we have been great tennants during the current contractual period having never missed a payment or paid late, additionally we both have good jobs that have kept us on and working from home throughout the lockdown period. I'm hopeful that this will continue and our jobs will be secure from redundancy (although I uinderstand that this may not be the case and I could potentially be put at risk in some point in the future.)

We are currently looking at purchasing our own home at some point next year. I have had a Lifetime ISA open for a number of years now however, my grilfriend (a foreign national) only opened her LISA in Febraury after I did some research and found out that foreign nationals are elligible for the governement scheme as well. Due to my girlfriends LISA the earliest we would be able to withdraw the money penalty free would be February 2021. But we are planning on saving and depositing the maximum amount for this tax year (£4,000) and additionally saving a further £4,000 this tax year so as soon as the new tax year commences on 6th April 2021 we will be able to deposit a further maximum of £4k each and get an additional government bonus at the start of next years tax year as well.

If we manage to save all that money and receive the government bonus we will have a sizeable deposit saved up to enable us to secure a mortgage in May of next year (giving the government a month to deposit the bonus int othe LISA's after the £4k is deposited at the start of next year). From that point in time we will be firmly on the hunt for our first home but we would like flexibility in our tenancy agreement to allow us to search for our first home and not have to worry too much about paying rent and a mortgage concurrently, I appreciate that there is most likely going to be at least one month of overlap.

We are currently organising a 12-month tennancy agreement with a 9 month break clause, but I'm not certain that will give us the flexibility we need, as it will require a 2 month notice period, additionally, I'm not sure whether this will grant us the ability to provide notice at any point after those 9 months (i.e. we would like to leave in month 10 - can we do this?). Ideally I would like to just move onto a periodic tennancy after this contract however, I doubt the landlord will agree to this as they're opinion is heavily swayed by the estate agent whom of course want to receive their admin fee (I believe they receive the first months rent). There is a lot of unknowns involved, how long will it take to find a place, have an offer accepted, be granted a mortgage etc.. can anyone offer advice on the current rental agreement negotiations?

Many thanks and apologies for the lengthy post!

Lokolo

Lots of waffle, but got there in the end. If you don't want to sign a fixed term contract you don't need to. It will automatically go to whatever it says in your tenancy agreement (usually periodic with 2 months notice). The landlord doesn't have to agree to it, thats what will happen. 
He may serve notice because of it, but its unlikely. 

greatcrested

Read

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?

greatcrested

To be clear

Lokolo said:

....If you don't want to sign a fixed term contract you don't need to. It will automatically go to whatever it says in your tenancy agreement (usually periodic with 2 months notice) or if the tenancy agreement says nothing it will go to a Statutory Periodic Tenancy. The landlord doesn't have to agree to it, thats what will happen. 
He may serve notice because of it, but its unlikely. 

See link above

OldMusicGuy

We are currently in this situation. We are in rented after selling our place, initially signed a six month fixed term in October 19, expecting to be out of rented in Feb/March 20. For a whole bunch of reasons, this didn't happen. We agreed to a fixed 5 month extension in March to take us up to end August, again expecting to be out by then. The new build we are buying has been delayed and we won't be able to move in until late August/September at the earliest.

The landlord would like us to agree to a new fixed term of at least 3 months but we are debating if we let the tenancy move to rolling monthly at the end of August. If we do that, our LL has to give us two months notice, whereas we can give one month's notice. That means we don't have to commit to a fixed term but there is a risk that the LL can serve two months notice on us. If our new build extends beyond October, we will be in trouble. So it's always going to be a risk.

I can tell you this: buying a house is very rarely straightfoward. When we sold our house back in 2019, we had a place lined up to buy and expected to be settled no later than March 2020. Nothing went to plan (and COVID happened as well), and here we are, still in a somewhat uncertain position.

No easy answers. You will have to balance the desire to know that you will have a secure rental place against the flexibility of being able to terminate without having to pay lots of outstanding rent (and the risk the LL may serve notice on you before you are ready to move).     

boxer234

I’m in the same situation have signed for another 12 months and aim to save more money.  It really is a pain but like others have said he is unlikely to serve notice if you do not sign seems silly. 

saajan_12

Let it go periodic, and check what if anything your tenancy agreement says about your notice period after the end of the fixed term. You'll either roll into a Contractual or a Statutory Periodic Tenancy.
Either way, you don't need the Landlord to 'agree to this' as it'll happen automatically. Their only recourse would be to serve a Section 21 notice to ultimately evict you, which would
a) be stupid for the LL as a LL wanting 'security' of a fixed term would be precisely to avoid the hassle and uncertainty of eviction and the following void. Only the LA would benefit.
b) with the Covid related extension to 3 months notice and delay in court proceedings, plus the anyway long process, it would take 9 months for the landlord to evict anyway.

As to your original question, depending on the wording a break clause may / may not be valid any time after the 9 months, so you'd need to be careful. You're better off sticking to the periodic. 

dimbo61

The letting agents will want you to sign a new contract so they can charge the Landlord for drawing up a new contract.
The Landlord might ! want you  to sign a new tenancy agreement as they know you will stay another 6/12/24 months.
However the Landlord would be stupid to try and evict  existing tenants just because you ask to go periodic.
So Tell them you won't sign a new contract and are happy to go onto a periodic tenancy 

Gsharp93

Thanks all your comments were all helpful (apologies for the waffle). We have reached an agreement with the Landlord and Real Estate agent, essentialyl we're going to go for an 18 month lease which we can leave from 9 months onwards. Essentially we will need to give the landlord 2 months notice thus from month 7 onwards )through to the end of the contract) we can give notice (which will hopefully provide us the flexibility and time required.

Gsharp93

I don't think that the landlord was overly comfortable in going for the tenancy to proceed to periodic.

Comms69

Gsharp93 said:

I don't think that the landlord was overly comfortable in going for the tenancy to proceed to periodic.

Funny he/she has literally no say in that.