Can you have an assured shorthold tenancy of less than 6 months?

[Beaumon]

And do you have one/ know of anyone who has?

I'm in the process of selling my house and had agreed with the buyers to rent it from them for a few months (they were planning to rent it out for a while anyway). Buyers and had agreed between ourselves to a rolling 1 month contract, which (we thought) had been agreed by Lettings Agent. LA are now saying sorry, they got the wrong end of the stick and the minimum contract we can have is a 6 month AST.

A quick google suggest there is no minimum term for an AST, the six month thing comes from that being the minimum time after which landlords can start eviction proceedings.

e.g. https://painsmith.co.uk/minimum-term-for-an-assured-shorthold-tenancy/

Does anybody have experience of ASTs shorter than 6 months? Could it be that our LA is just not familiar with them/ not keen on them for some reason?

(6 month tenancy would not be the end of the world, but I'd prefer to have the flexibility I'd originally agreed with buyers, as I don't know when my new house will be ready.)

You are the landlord and you can rent out your property for a period of time that works for you. No 6 month minimum

Why does it matter what the letting agent says?

Thanks for that. I'm the tenant, not the landlord in this situation though @Afteropening - my buyers will be the landlord (as of next week) - sorry if that wasn't clear. They have been told by the LA it has to be a six month minimum, I'm just looking for information I can pass on to them to let them know it's not.

Thanks @kirinm . It matters at the moment because my buyers/ landlords-to-be have been told by the LA that it has to be a 6 month minimum. Buyers and I are in discussion trying to find a solution, and ideally some website or link we can show to LA saying there is no legal minimum. Hopefully once we've done that, it won't matter and LA will do what we had originally asked for!

Throw it back to the LA and ask them to provide evidence that this is a legal requirement

Has the buyer got authorisation from their solicitor and bank for this? It’s not usually allowed, it’s massively risky and messy.

Anyway, there’s no legal minimum term for an AST, but you can’t evict until six months has passed so they’re not advisable.

It’s likely an estate agent won’t draw up an AST for less than six months, as it wouldn’t be advisable practice. I’m stunned they’ve found a solicitor willing to manage a sale this is happening in, too; let alone a mortgage (if they’ve got one!)

@YouveGotAFastCar Could you expand a bit on why it is risky and messy and not advisable practice ? The Estate Agent and Letting Agent are part if the same company and the buyer and I are both using their in house solicitors, but at different branches to avoid a conflict of interest. I don't know how much their solicitor knows about it though.

It's a cash purchase so no mortgage/ bank involved, does that make a difference?

We were selling a house a couple of years ago and our buyer asked to rent it. We said no because (a) they might live in it and decide they don't like living there. (B) live in it and decide to renegotiate the price downwards at the end of the tenancy and (c) live there and report lots of 'repairs'.

We have a holiday cottage and sometimes have had people ask to stay longer ie between homes.

We have a standard holiday contract which we amend to a one month stay and just get a new one signed every month.

However because it is a holiday let it is fully furnished and bills included.

The contract is just one copied from the internet. Depending on your buyers, would that be enough to satisfy them. It’s a bit like an Air B&B in an other form.

Thanks @bathroomcupnoard . But in your case was it that you didn't want to rent it to anyone, or that you did want to rent it but just not to the former owner? My buyers were always planning to rent it out for a bit and were pleased to have a tenant (me) who could be paying rent from day 1.

Thanks @Isheabastard , I'll mention that to them

Are you buyers buying with a buy to let mortgage do you know? Or is it a residential one. If the latter, they must have vacant possession on completion otherwise they'll be in breach of their mortgage terms. Not your problem per se but something to think about.

Thanks @HettySunshine , they're cash buyers so no mortgage involved. Hopefully that makes it a bit less complicated

Yes an AST can be shorter than 6 months - a situation where there's no contract can be seen as an implied AST. The difficulty is that the legal system doesn't recognise any term less than 6 months. As a result letting agents are unlikely to offer their services for anything less than 6 months - more a won't than a can't.

There are issues in the conveyancing process for this kind of thing. Unless there's a buy to let mortgage in place the buyers will need vacant possession of the property.

From a rental perspective for you to stay on the house would need a valid gas safety certificate on the day of completion (effectively moving in day) as well as an EICR, all usual rental documents would need to be issued prior to completion. An inventory would need to be carried out etc etc.

Depending on your reasons for trying to do things this way one option is to exchange with a completion date well into the future, changeable by mutual agreement with one months notice. It's how new builds are sold and a family member did that last year when we were looking at all the same things you are.

Short term letting brings it's own slightly different set of legislation including complying with the recent fire rules.

Just seen there's no mortgage - makes it slightly less complicated but the buyers solicitor will still hate the idea and all the other requirements to let still stand.

Thanks @kitchenhelprequired , that's really useful. We either have or are in the process of getting all the other docs and certificates, it just seems to be the length of the tenancy that has cropped up at the last minute, so we just need to reach agreement on that. We're waiting to hear back from the Letting Agents tomorrow.