UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi everyone, hoping someone can give me an advice.

Here is my situation me and my partner recently bought a property (1st time buyers). We are currently renting and our landlord is aware of our situation and we have told the landlord from the start that we are in the process of buying a property. And due to this they have agreed for us to have a rolling contract with 2 months notice. We have given our official notice on Feb 15 and this means our contract ends April 15. We are vacating the property 1 month early and we are aware that we are still liable for the rent until our notice period ends. We pay rent every 26th of the month and in advance. We paid our rent Feb 26 and that covers until March 26. We were planning to let the landlord take the remaining rent from our deposit and just give us back whatever is left. Now our landlord has emailed us saying that we still need to pay a full rent on March 26 eventhough they we have given our notice from Feb 15 and notice ends april 15. She told us that she only advertised from March 3 so technically that's when the notice starts. At first we agreed that if ever she finds a new tenant before the notice period ends we will get our deposit back but now she is saying that this not the case anymore. We don't know where we stand. Correct me if I'm wrong, technically we still have the right to use the property until April 15 and she shouldn't let anyone else rent it before that date but we agreed at first that we are happy to give her the full access to the property to show it to potential tenants and to redecorate it since we have lived in the property for 7 years. Are we right in saying we are only liable for rent until April 15. I feel like this is unfair that she wants us to pay full rent and she have full access to the property and will have 2 rent when she finds a new tenant.

Can anyone give me an insight to this. Sorry for a long post been really stressed as we already have a lot of expense due to the move. Thanks in advance.

There are two different issues. Your notice and rent due depends entirely on the agreement that you made about a rolling agreement with two month's notice. That agreement is what determines who's entitled or obliged to do what.

Secondly, a landlord can't have "rent" when there's no tenancy, and can't let a property to someone else when there's another tenancy on the same property for the same period. But the terms of a tenancy agreement normally don't cover a situation when rent due and the tenancy term don't coincide, which can cause anomalies that need to be resolved.

Quote from: jpkeates on March 10, 2024, 07:12:30 AMThere are two different issues. Your notice and rent due depends entirely on the agreement that you made about a rolling agreement with two month's notice. That agreement is what determines who's entitled or obliged to do what.

Secondly, a landlord can't have "rent" when there's no tenancy, and can't let a property to someone else when there's another tenancy on the same property for the same period. But the terms of a tenancy agreement normally don't cover a situation when rent due and the tenancy term don't coincide, which can cause anomalies that need to be resolved.

Thank for your response. The agreement said "A rolling contract commencing on and including (Nov 26 2023)
To terminate the contract a minimum of 2 months notice is required"

The landlord has started to advertise it and it's advertise that it will be available from March 19 as that's when we will be vacating the property. So we are right not to release the keys as we technically still renting the property until April 15 but she wants us to pay full rent so basically we are paid until April 26. And if she finds a new tenant before the tenancy ends she should return some of the rent we paid. Is that right?

It's hard to give sensible options because the landlord is acting irrationally, so it's impossible to understand how'll they'll respond. And that "agreement" doesn't really help.

How about this? On March 26th pay rent to April 15th (Take the month's rent and multiply it by 12 and divide by 365 and multiply that by 21). I know it's a leap year, but there's no point being clever! And check the days, I've just checked it on my fingers and I'm often wrong.

That might hack the landlord off, but there's not much they can do about it. I imagine the landlord is going to be a real pain about your deposit (wild guess), so get the cleaning right and be ready to simply sue them to get it back (it's an online process and simple enough, if a bit daunting at first gl;ance). The chances are that they won't want to use the deposit scheme's protection process.

I'm assuming you're in England by the way. Otherwise ignore that!

JPK is spot on, the only considerations might be if you have a Contractual Periodic Tenancy that states notice might only be given on a certain day but these are very hard to enforce.

Your deposit should NOT be used to pay the last month's deposit, this is usually specified in most Tenancy Agreements, it is held for the performance of the contract, albeit that there will be a potential dispute of rent owed.

I do not understand why this Landlord think they can double dip, you are entitled to remain for the full two months and pay the full rent to that date.

However, the Landlord is talking complete BS by saying the notice is deemed to commence when they advertise it, the notice is deemed to commence when it is served. The Tenancy may or may not be silent on how you must serve notice but I seriously doubt any Court or Adjudicator will not consider your notice to have been served on the day you provided it.

Of course it would not be unreasonable to say to a Landlord, "as we have a dispute about the amount of the rent due, we will not be making a payment for the final month's rent and we will refer the matter to the ADR process of the Deposit Protection Scheme.

Your deposit should have been protected in one of the three Government approved Deposit Protection Schemes, you can verify the protection online and take screenshots of the results.  If there is a dispute on the amount owed or returned then you can easily refer the matter to them to determine the appropriate deductions. Now if you have not been informed of the deposit being protected by way of service of the Prescribed Information, then that create a potential liability for each Tenancy for as long as the deposit was not protected.

As JPK says, make sure there is no potential for other deductions film and photograph everything so that in the event of a dispute you have everything, research online photos of the property and what they look like historically.

If you have lived there for 7 years and a rolling contract was created in November 2023 then that suggests that there a number of previous contracts and any deposit protection failures might apply to them too.  This can give you leverage to reach a settlement in the event of any dispute.

Also if you have been there for 7 years there is no need for you to redecorate, the law allows for fair wear and tear, so it will expect the Landlord to redecorate unless there is a clause that says walls must not be painted a different colour and you pained the walls magenta, but even that is hard to enforce in the circumstances as you describe them because the Landlord would be expected to redecorate anyway.

Quote from: Heavenlyflower on March 09, 2024, 11:22:56 PMHi everyone, hoping someone can give me an advice.

Here is my situation me and my partner recently bought a property (1st time buyers). We are currently renting and our landlord is aware of our situation and we have told the landlord from the start that we are in the process of buying a property. And due to this they have agreed for us to have a rolling contract with 2 months notice. We have given our official notice on Feb 15 and this means our contract ends April 15. We are vacating the property 1 month early and we are aware that we are still liable for the rent until our notice period ends. We pay rent every 26th of the month and in advance. We paid our rent Feb 26 and that covers until March 26. We were planning to let the landlord take the remaining rent from our deposit and just give us back whatever is left. Now our landlord has emailed us saying that we still need to pay a full rent on March 26 eventhough they we have given our notice from Feb 15 and notice ends april 15. She told us that she only advertised from March 3 so technically that's when the notice starts. At first we agreed that if ever she finds a new tenant before the notice period ends we will get our deposit back but now she is saying that this not the case anymore. We don't know where we stand. Correct me if I'm wrong, technically we still have the right to use the property until April 15 and she shouldn't let anyone else rent it before that date but we agreed at first that we are happy to give her the full access to the property to show it to potential tenants and to redecorate it since we have lived in the property for 7 years. Are we right in saying we are only liable for rent until April 15. I feel like this is unfair that she wants us to pay full rent and she have full access to the property and will have 2 rent when she finds a new tenant.

Can anyone give me an insight to this. Sorry for a long post been really stressed as we already have a lot of expense due to the move. Thanks in advance.

Excellent points there.