A Tenant's guide to renting

DealCruncher

Bootsox wrote: »

earthmother, thanks for your response, there are indeed shark infested waters out there.

My limited understanding (and in my situation where the original 12 month letting period passed some time ago and the tenancy has just run on) is that the landlord is legally obliged to give you two months notice to quit. If they want you out, the onus is on the landlord or his letting agent do the work of formally issuing the notification.

Having now spoke to the letting agent, he informs me that once I have the letter to quit, I can vacate the property at any convenient time to myself and a pro-rata adjustment will be made on the rent up to the point of leaving.

However, I am wondering if anybody can confirm this is the correct situation from a legal point of view?

There will be a notice period written into the tenancy agreement on both parts.

This states how much notice each party has to give. The tenancy agreement should be freely available from your letting agent or landlord.

Jamez1080_2

We currently have a dispute with our landlord over the end of tenancy agreement. We signed up for a 6 month contract extension from September 2009 ending 12th March 2010. We gave the landlord Notice on 12th February 2010 that we wish to vacate the property at the end of the 6 month contract. He is now trying to insist that we must give him 4 weeks notice at the end of the 6 months taking us until 12th April 2010! Surely this means he is forcing us pay for 7 months when we only agreed a 6 month contract?
I am worried as we have a £750 deposit held by the DPS which we need back asap to move into new accommodation. Does the landlord have any right to take a further months rent from our deposit?
Thanks in advance

Colincbayley

Jamez1080 wrote: »

We currently have a dispute with our landlord over the end of tenancy agreement. We signed up for a 6 month contract extension from September 2009 ending 12th March 2010. We gave the landlord Notice on 12th February 2010 that we wish to vacate the property at the end of the 6 month contract. He is now trying to insist that we must give him 4 weeks notice at the end of the 6 months taking us until 12th April 2010! Surely this means he is forcing us pay for 7 months when we only agreed a 6 month contract?
I am worried as we have a £750 deposit held by the DPS which we need back asap to move into new accommodation. Does the landlord have any right to take a further months rent from our deposit?
Thanks in advance

Your LL is wrong.

You only need to give one clear months notice to expire on the last day of a rental period.

HOWEVER, you are still within your fixed term ( of the extention thereof ) as such you don't have to give any notice at all, none, zero, sweet FA, as such, you could if you so wished just give them the keys back on the last day and off you go.

Hannah2

Colincbayley wrote: »

.......HOWEVER, you are still within your fixed term ( of the extention thereof ) as such you don't have to give any notice at all, none, zero, sweet FA, as such, you could if you so wished just give them the keys back on the last day and off you go.

I think this answers my question but can I just double check...

....I have a 6 month shorthold tenancy agreement due to exp on 31/03 and was under the impression that as long as I left by 31/03 I did not have to give notice to do so. However, when I phoned today to give a courtesy 1 month notice the agency is saying I have to give 2 months notice to leave.

Am I right in saying that I could in theory just leave on the 31st March without notice?

TIA

khelzy09

you've done a great job..
this very useful thread..
thanks

seraphina

Jamez1080- Unfortunately IIRC you have to give one clear month's notice, so in order to move out on the 12 March, the last day you can give notice is the 11 Feb.

Also, IIRC, unless you were served a notice to quit at the beginning of your 6 month tenancy, you automatically revert to a rolling contract, whereby you have to give 1 months' notice and your landlord 2 months.

seraphina

Just thought I'd share our recent experience with the TDS.

Upon leaving our last house, we were billed for professional cleaning of the oven, house and carpets, as well as for the repair of damage to the kitchen tiling that had happened when the boiler was replaced. We informed the LA of the damage to the tiling that the plumber had made when the boiler was fitted, but never heard anything back; our move-in inventory clearly states that there were marks on the walls and carpets. We moved in 3 hours after the last tenant moved out so there was no time for professional cleaning; our contract said that we were to return the property in a similar state to what we had found it in, therefore no obligation for professional cleaning.

We were very unhappy with these proposed deductions and it became clear that it would eventually go to the TDS. The letting agent did their level best to dissuade us from this, saying it was highly unlikely that we would win, that it would take at least 6 months, and that we'd forfeit our whole deposit.

This was of course, a pack of lies. Once the LA had started the dispute, the TDS wrote to us asking for our response. We sent it all off, and within a a reasonably short time (the whole thing only took about 8 weeks, and that was over Christmas) we got a nice cheque in the post for the whole disputed amount. The LA had supplied the TDS dispute service with a list of the jobs needed to be done. That was all. We supplied the tenancy agreement and a comprehensive summary (backed up with our correspondance with the LA in writing), and the verdict was that the LA had not supplied any evidence at all so they had no option but to find in our favour

Some points:
- Only the amount disputed is held during the dispute. So if you have a £900 deposit, and the LA requests £300 for cleaning which you dispute, you get £600 back and the £300 is held awaiting the verdict

-The letting agent is working for the landlord, not the tenant and will do everything they can to dissuade you from making a claim and just paying up. It's also more work for the LA, as they will have to file the claim on behalf of the landlord

-The LA, working for someone else's money will never put in as much effort to reclaim their money as I will working for my own money:p

- Get all correspondence in writing - evidence of house inspections, requests for maintenance etc

-Let the landlord/lettings agent file the complaint. You will then be asked for your response and can address each point accordingly. If you raise the complaint, it's the landlord/agent that gets to respond, and you will have no idea what they say.

MissMoneypenny

seraphina wrote: »

Just thought I'd share our recent experience with the TDS.

Upon leaving our last house, we were billed for professional cleaning of the oven, house and carpets, as well as for the repair of damage to the kitchen tiling that had happened when the boiler was replaced. We informed the LA of the damage to the tiling that the plumber had made when the boiler was fitted, but never heard anything back; our move-in inventory clearly states that there were marks on the walls and carpets. We moved in 3 hours after the last tenant moved out so there was no time for professional cleaning; our contract said that we were to return the property in a similar state to what we had found it in, therefore no obligation for professional cleaning.

We were very unhappy with these proposed deductions and it became clear that it would eventually go to the TDS. The letting agent did their level best to dissuade us from this, saying it was highly unlikely that we would win, that it would take at least 6 months, and that we'd forfeit our whole deposit.

This was of course, a pack of lies. Once the LA had started the dispute, the TDS wrote to us asking for our response. We sent it all off, and within a a reasonably short time (the whole thing only took about 8 weeks, and that was over Christmas) we got a nice cheque in the post for the whole disputed amount. The LA had supplied the TDS dispute service with a list of the jobs needed to be done. That was all. We supplied the tenancy agreement and a comprehensive summary (backed up with our correspondance with the LA in writing), and the verdict was that the LA had not supplied any evidence at all so they had no option but to find in our favour

Some points:
- Only the amount disputed is held during the dispute. So if you have a £900 deposit, and the LA requests £300 for cleaning which you dispute, you get £600 back and the £300 is held awaiting the verdict

-The letting agent is working for the landlord, not the tenant and will do everything they can to dissuade you from making a claim and just paying up. It's also more work for the LA, as they will have to file the claim on behalf of the landlord

-The LA, working for someone else's money will never put in as much effort to reclaim their money as I will working for my own money:p

- Get all correspondence in writing - evidence of house inspections, requests for maintenance etc

-Let the landlord/lettings agent file the complaint. You will then be asked for your response and can address each point accordingly. If you raise the complaint, it's the landlord/agent that gets to respond, and you will have no idea what they say.

Thanks for telling us about this. It's good to know that the deposit schemes deal with this quickly and they only hold on to the disputed amount.

Good tip about letting the landlord or agency start the dispute.

It's a good reminder to all to put everthing in writing when dealing with landlord or letting agency thoughout the tenancy.

Well done on winning.

Peston

Our tenancy expired in November and we moved onto a periodic contract by default as the landlord ignored requests for an extension. We were told by the letting agents that we would have to give one months notice but now that we have given notice they are telling us that the month starts from the date we pay our rent which would make it in effect 6 weeks notice. Are they trying it on or telling the truth? We urgently need some advice as the rent will go out of our account soon and I don't think we'll see it again if they are wrong. Help please!

Premier_2

Peston wrote: »

Our tenancy expired in November and we moved onto a periodic contract by default as the landlord ignored requests for an extension. We were told by the letting agents that we would have to give one months notice but now that we have given notice they are telling us that the month starts from the date we pay our rent which would make it in effect 6 weeks notice. Are they trying it on or telling the truth? We urgently need some advice as the rent will go out of our account soon and I don't think we'll see it again if they are wrong. Help please!

You would be required to give one clear months notice to terminate the tenancy agreement, and any termination usually ends on the last day of a rental period ... in your case that is monthly and presumably ends on or the day before the day the rent is due.

So essentially the letting agent is probably correct, in that if you get the timing wrong (e.g. give notice the day after the day the rent is due), you could need to give almost 2 months notice.

If you want to vacate the premises and hand back the keys, that should usually be possible. Whilst the landlord should not be getting two lots of rent for the same property at the same time by reletting, I suspect that won't happen for the 2 weeks that appears to be in dispute in this case, and so you need to pay for the extra two weeks.