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Landlord:
Tenancy Dates - What dates do I start or end the tenancy?
There are several dates that are important in a tenancy.
Length of Tenancy
It is up to the landlord to decide how long the fixed period of the tenancy should be, in making this decision though you must note that you can not end the tenancy in the fixed period unless the tenant has breached the terms of the agreement.
Once you have decided on your start date for the tenancy and how long the fixed period is, you need to make sure that you have the correct date for when the tenancy ends.
It is not necessary to put on the Tenancy Agreement the date that the tenancy finishes, although some landlords like to add this information in to avoid any misunderstanding.
There can be some confusion as to what the last day of the tenancy actually is. If you have a tenancy that starts on 14th, the final date for the tenancy would be 13th of the month.
Example 1 - if the tenancy started on 14th February 2011 and was for a fixed period of six months the tenancy would then end on 13th August 2011.
Example 2 - if the tenancy was for a fixed period of 12 months, the tenancy would end on 13th February 2012.
Periodic Tenancy
Once the fixed period of the tenancy expires there are two options open to a landlord, you can either issue another tenancy agreement for a fixed period, or you can let the tenancy run on, this is called a periodic tenancy. The advantage of having a periodic tenancy is that you can end the tenancy by giving 2 months notice (Section 21 Notice), if you have a fixed term tenancy you can still give two months notice, but it can not expire until the last day of the fixed period.
If you have a periodic tenancy it would start on the day after the fixed period has expired, so in example 1 above, the periodic tenancy would start on 14th August 2011
The length of the periodic tenancy then depends on how rent is paid, if you have rent payable monthly, the periodic tenancy is monthly and would run from 14th of the month to 13th of the next month.
If rent is payable weekly, you would then have to see what day of the week the periodic tenancy started – 14th August 2011 is a Sunday, so your periodic tenancy would be weekly and run from Sunday to Saturday.
It is important that you get these dates correct as you need these dates to calculate when your two month notice expires (Section 21 Notice).
Section 21 Notice
Under Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 the Landlord is able to give the tenant two months notice of their intention to seek possession of the property.
The Act states that the tenant must be given at least two months notice and the notice must expire on the last day of a tenancy period. However, the notice can not expire any sooner than the end of the fixed period.
If you are going to serve a Section 21 Notice during the fixed period, the date the Notice expires is quite straight forward. If there are more than two months to the end of the fixed period, the Notice expires on the last day of the fixed period. If there are less than two months to the end of the fixed period, the Notice expires two months after the date it was served.
If you are going to serve a Section 21 Notice when the tenancy is a periodic tenancy you must then ensure that you give the tenant at least two months notice and the notice must expire on the last day of the periodic tenancy.
If you do not have the correct dates on your Section 21 Notice, a Judge will not order possession of the property and unfortunately you may not find this out until you are four months down the line. It is therefore very important that you check the dates before you start the process.
