Terminating tenancy but lost the AST and not sure of dates?

Hi BJ,

As long as it is not more than 2 months before the end date you can issue a S21 with 2 months notice and maybe add a week for postage and get proof of postage.

Wasn't the date of the tenancy recorded when you protected the deposit? Try asking your deposit protection scheme.

you can issue the notice if you manage to 'guess' the dates. However, if the tenant is difficult, as implied, then you won't be able to evict them without a tenancy agreement. Did you use someone to draw it up for you? Will they have a copy you can have? If not you should get specialist help from the offset.
should also add if you serve the notice and get the date wrong, you will have to re serve it and wait for the time to expire.....

If your tenant doesn't leave after the notice period on your Section 21 you'll have to apply to the court for a Possession Order by filling in form N5B and one of the documents you must submit is a copy of the AST. You will also need to submit a copy of the Deposit Protection Certificate issued by your tenancy deposit scheme. As Alison suggests, you may be able to get the date from them (or your bank statements if the first months rent was paid in on sign up day?), however if they don't leave you will need to take professional advice on how you can proceed without the AST...

Someone else on here may have come up against this before and could tell you how they managed, however you'd best sort through every box and drawer to try and find the file.

It may be that you could offer a financial bribe to encourage them to leave, although I wouldn't let on that you can't get them out as they may well take advantage! Just come up with a genuine sounding reason that you've reluctantly had to give them notice such as you are planning to sell, or there is major renovation work needed and you would like to make it easier for them to find somewhere else. I once sent a lovely letter giving notice because we were planning to sell the property along with the S21 and enclosed a glowing reference to assist them to find a new property along with an offer to refund their deposit direct to their new landlord as soon as they found somewhere so that they wouldn't have to stump up the money for their new deposit themselves whilst theirs was tied up in the check-out process. This all went smoothly and they moved out and were appreciative of the extra help. Not sure if these ideas would help reduce the likelihood of having to go down the court order route (which was what I was trying to avoid myself).

Good luck, I hope the paperwork turns up!

If the tenancy started on or after 1 October 2015 (and is of course outside the fixed term), you need only give 2 calendar months notice - that is, the notice can be for 2 months after it is dated. However, if the tenancy started BEFORE 1 October 2015, the old rules will apply which means the 2 months notice has to correspond to the actual day of month the tenancy started on (e.g. tenancy dated 5 February, then notice must be at least 2 months from 5 August expiring no sooner 5 October, though a workaround is to give more than 2 months, taking in the tenancy period). If you're unsure which day of the month the tenancy started, the rent is normally paid on that day, unless either the tenant or the landlord has opted for a different day. If the rent is paid by standing order, barring bank holidays and weekends, it will go into your account on that day.

Reply to the comment left by "Mandy Thomson" at "14/07/2016 - 17:14":

Section 21 notice for any statutory periodic tenancy now needs only two months' notice ending on any day.

There was a court case on this (I cannot remember the parties), and it was put into statute by the Deregulation Act 2015, section 35.

Reply to the comment left by "Michael Barnes" at "14/07/2016 - 21:59":

You're right - Spencer v Taylor brought in the new 2 months straight notice form. However, the advice of the NLA was to still follow the old form (which follows the tenancy period) as in practice the change would take time to filter down to the county court judges (who often don't deal with a lot of landlord/tenant disputes). The article can be seen on the NLA's site here: http://www.ukala.org.uk/agents/news-public-affairs/news/spencer-vs-taylor-implications-section-21

However, I believe this was written before the Deregulation Act became law on 1 October 2015, but I don't know if many county court judges would still expect a pre-Deregulation Act tenancy S21 to follow the old form; perhaps someone with experience of this could shed some light here?

Thanks for all of your replies. I have found one tenancy agreement from 2013 but can't find the latest one so am unsure of the exact date, I'm going to follow the advice and issue the S.21 telling the tenant I'm selling. Fingers crossed!