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Question Title: Period of tenancy
| Question: 289 |
| I have inherited a residential tenancy where the rent is stated as £4200 per annum and the rent payments are to be made every quarter on standard quarter days. The tenancy has become periodic and the tenant wants to give notice and asks what length of notice needs to be given ? The tenant would like to give a month's notice.
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| Answer: |
| The rules for service of notice are derived from the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 and the common law. According to these rules, a tenant is required to give at least four weeks notice to his landlord and the length of the notice will normally be equal to the length of the period, except when the period is annual, where six months' notice is acceptable. Given the rent is denominated as an annual amount, then presumably the period is one year. The length of the period is normally derived from the period in which the rent is expressed on the tenancy agreement (Laine v Cadwallader, 2000 where rent stated to be "£ 390 per calendar month payable every two months in advance" was held to be a monthly tenancy). As to the length of the notice required, the principle which generally applies, and which would be applicable in this case, is that the notice should be equal to at least period of the tenancy and expiring at the end of the tenancy" Quoted with approval from Hill & Redman's Law of Landlord & Tenant Vol.1 A8127 by Lord Justice Kennedy in Laine v.Cadwallader. In your case, the rent is specified as an annual amount and the common rules dictate that where the period is one year, six months' notice is required. It would be usual industry practice that the notice would end on one of the quarter days. The quarter days are Lady, Midsummer, Michaelmas and Christmas Clearly, this is an onerous requirement for the tenant who was presumably unaware of this trap, or not properly advised when he signed the agreement. However, both landlord and tenant could agree to shorten the notice period by mutual consent. A simpler method would be to keep to monthly (or perhaps weekly) rent periods.
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Letting Handbook |
Chapter 7 |
letting-handbook-and-factsheets.html
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