UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi all,

Newish landlord has sent to tenant notice to gain possession under section 21.  I know that I have to give a minimum of two months notice and I read that you should make the date of expiry ie the date that they should move out by or by which you start court action if they don't move out one day before the date that the rent is due.   I have an AST for which the fixed period has past and it has converted automatically to a periodic tenancy of one months notice of tenant to us and two months notice of us to them.

My question is must the date of expiry be exactly on the date of the periodic rent ie you must give full months notice to quit?  Can't you give 2.5 months notice for example rather than 3 months notice?  The notes that I've seen on the internet suggest that you must give notice in full calendar months.

If you have experience of this and can offer any info then it will be much appreciated

You can give 2.5 months notice, yes. Or 2.75. Or 4. Or 4.1.

If the rent is, say, due on the 15th day of each month, you do not have to serve your notice on the 14th day. You can serve it on the 1st day... as long as it's at least 2 months. The idea about the expiry date associating with a rental payment date is for simplicity, so there's no complicated addition, subtraction and long division required to calculate rent owed, either way. If all goes according to plan, rent is paid up until the day of departure... no sums to do.

Thank you very much for your reply and the specific point you make about the expiry date (date to move out by) being the rent due date and not having complicated sums to do makes sense but if I don't mind doing the sums or if I'm prepared to lose a day or two's rent to ask the tenant to move out on a date isn't the rent due date can I do that as long as I give two months notice?  If for example the rent due date is the first of the month but I serve notice of possession on 19th can I set the expiry date as the 18th two months later and just charge two weeks rent in that last month for example?

Thanks again for your help it is really good to have experienced people sharing their knowledge with newbies like us.

"at least" 2 months notice. Give yourself a window.