Ending an AST Agreement

The date of serving never has has any relevance to the rent due date (nor vice versa).

The date of serving can be any date, provided two clear months are given to the required posession date. However, the posession date cannot be earlier than the end of the fixed term.

Spencer vs Taylor seems (I am not a lawyer) to have removed the need to give notice to the end of a tenancy period once the tenancy has become statutory periodic.

Reply to the comment left by "Michael Barnes " at "09/02/2014 - 21:39":

Hi Michael

Your last comment has summed up Spender vs Taylor very well and also answered Jeremy's question I believe.

I also agree with your earlier statement about giving as much notice as possible.

With regards to serving notice, I believe my brother has made the best job of explaining how and why my family do things on his website - see >>> http://lettingagentsonline.co.uk/free-guide-to-finding-perfect-tenants/
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Yes, that's answered the question exactly, thanks.

There does seem to be alot of talk about giving notice, evicting tenants, etc, through the threads:
I would have thought we usually need to evict our tenants alot less than it appears by the frequency of the references to it !!

- In nearly 20 years of letting, I have had to give notice to quit only twice, does this mean that my tenants are deciding they don't like my properties ? ? !! Haha 🙁
- Most have moved on due to jobs, finding relationships, increasing family size, etc. --- so they say !!
Most of my present tenants have been with me for over 4 years now.

To bring it back to being (vaguely) relevant, (but in the case of the OP, he wants to move back into his home), we need to understand why we are needing to end the AST, or conversely, why the tenant wishes to leave.
If we are ending it, is there something we could have done differently to retain the tenant?
Did they get into a frame of mind so we ended up wanting to get rid of them because of bad behaviour?
Could we have changed their mindset ?
- Worth thinking about .

Reply to the comment left by "Jeremy Smith" at "09/02/2014 - 23:54":

Hi Jeremy

The vast majority of my tenants also stay long term and generally tend to move out only for the reasons you have stated. We find that talking to our tenants resolves the vast majority of problems and as a result we have only ever had to evict three tenants in 25 years despite having granted 1,000's of tenancies. So long as we respect and communicate with our tenants in an open and sincere manner the vast majority of reasonable people continue to be reasonable and respectful in return in my experience. It is when landlords become inconsiderate that a lot of the problems start in my opinion. For example, if a landlord does need to seek possession in order to move back into the property why not give the tenant as much notice as possible and communicate with them in a friendly manner at the earliest opportunity?

I often find that landlords get their just deserts when they have been inconsiderate. For example, some landlords have no intention of letting their properties long term but don't tell their tenants about this. They then want to sell their property 6 months down the line and can't understand why tenants have a problem with this. Well moving home and getting settled is stressful, time consuming and expensive. Imagine being asked to move out just 6 months after you moved into a property. You may not be able to afford the removal costs, time of work and all the other hassle associated with moving. My own perception is that it is tenants who find themselves in this position who are often the ones who cause problems and frankly who can really blame them for that?

I suspect it is precisely because you and I both want long term tenants Jeremy that we have so few problems, probably coupled with the types of properties and tenants we chose to rent our properties to.

I also think it is inevitable that dealing with people at the bottom end of the social scale creates more problems. A person who is unemployed and renting a room in an HMO is statistically far more likely to commit a crime than a a working family. Landlords must realise this and understand that's why higher gross yields are prevalent in that market, the old adage being "where there's muck there's brass"

For landlords who have purchased properties specifically for letting I can't think of any reason why they would want a constant turnover of tenants. This is, however, at conflict with most agents business models as they make the vast majority of their profits when tenants change over. For several years I have recognised that the vast majority of letting agencies survive on managing just one or two properties for each of their clients. These clients tend to be people who are renting their properties short term, often because they can't sell, are waiting for values to pick up or because they are working elsewhere. There are some investors who buy properties at a distance of course so management makes more sense. HOWEVER, as the cost of high quality management plummets due to improved technology and systems I am noticing a sea change in this traditional model. As you may know, Property118 acquired a 26% stake in letting Supermarket 9 months ago because we recognised that a lot of career landlords would outsource their management if the price was right and the service was comparable or better than they could offer for themselves. It seems to have been a very good decision. Could this be the turning point for the letting agency business model as we have come to know it?

Anyhow that's my Monday morning rant over and I feel so much better for it too 🙂
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