How much does my tenant owe me?

[Golaz]

Hi all,

I’ve had a tenant in my flat on for a few years. She’s been on a rolling contract since the first six months. She normally pays rent on the 11th of the month for the month ahead.

I gave her notice on 22nd January, that I would need the flat back by 16th April. (Under a rolling contract I need to give 2 months notice, but I wanted to let her know earlier rather than later, to give her some time to sort something).

On the 4th February she informed me she had found somewhere and would be moving out probably around the middle of February. I followed up today and asked if she had a date. She told me yes- she’s moving out on the 18th and will return on the 20th to clean the place.

How much rent does she owe me? She’s already paid until the 11th. She seems to think she only needs to pay for an extra week until the 18th , but in the rolling contract she’s supposed to give me one months notice so I feel like she should pay until the 4th March.

AIBU?

Should read posts on Property118 and think yourself lucky she is leaving and without issues

So she paid rent on 11th Jan for the month ahead so that’s until 10th Feb.

You gave her notice on 22nd Jan, she found somewhere quick & her last day at the house is now 20th Feb.

So she owes you 10 days rent if she is handing back the keys on 20th Feb.

She didn’t give you notice, you gave her notice.

I think you should count yourself lucky she managed to find somewhere so quickly as rentals get snapped up so fast.

Im a LL of a couple of properties. Payment to the 20th and a big sigh of relief she is leaving without fuss and you have the keys in your hands.

Ensure that you get buildings insurance covering an unoccupied property. I had a water escape claim on one of mine and the insurance company tried to wiggle out, but I was still within the time limit for it being empty and so they had to pay

Be glad she’s going with no problem. A relative of mine had to get bailiffs to get his tenants out and they wrecked the kitchen and lounge

Wow, aren’t you an ungenerous tw@t.

You gave her notice. She doesn't need to give you notice. She pays till the day she leaves.

I agree with this ^. don't be mean, speak to landlords who have had bad tenants and be grateful for all the rent you have had trouble free.

Thank you, this is helpful advice

I was on a similar rolling contract and we agreed (Landlord and Tenants) to pay until the day we left. If she's coming back on 20th to clean to avoid charges for cleaning, then I would charge until 20th. If it's out of goodwill then I'd only expect rent until 18th. You've given the notice here.

I also think she owes until she hands over the keys, so 20th Feb. Because you gave her notice and not vice versa.

But to be honest I have no idea of the legalities of it.

I do agree that it’s probably best to let this one go, as it’s great she’s moving out with no hassles.

If you’re in the UK, standard notice is 2 months not 1 month.

OP sounds like a usual greedy landlord who wants to get rid of tenants but but doesn’t want much of a void period. Or in this case wants money coming in for as long as possible as she’s moving back in herself.

Did you serve a Section 21 OP? If not you should be relieved that the tenant has accepted informal notice to leave as they didn’t have to.

Tenant does not need to give notice as you already did and if you served a Section 21, I’m
pretty sure it says to leave BY the date on it. The fact tenant had found a a new place earlier to honour your request for her to leave is a good thing and I doubt it would stand up in court if you tried to go down the legal route to get her to pay.

Well, if a tenant doesn’t clean up, you just get a professional end-of-tenancy clean done and knock the cost (around £160 in London, may be cheaper elsewhere) off the tenant’s deposit.

That is subject to approval from the tenancy deposit holders, which will side with the tenant unless a detailed inventory including the cleanliness of the property and signed by the tenant exists.

🙄 fgs RTFT. And I’m seriously done with being called “greedy”.

Really bad advice. Legally tenants seaports need to be protected and detracting fees isn’t a straightforward process without proof of damage etc. If the OP has failed to protect the deposit properly (I have suspicions) she could be liable for three times the amount.

Read the thread.

People really need to stop posting , without reading the thread, with the same advice when it is now clear that 1) it is wrong, and 2) it’s irrelevant now anyway; I have already agreed that she pays until she leaves, as I have gathered from this thread that that is customary/ seen as decent .

Under the contract we both (freely and mutually) signed , she does , in fact, owe me until the 4th March, but I’m not going to ask for it .

I gave her extra notice that I needed the property back because I felt bad that I was uprooting her from what had become her home , and wanted her to have time to find somewhere else. I didn’t expect her to leave exactly when I wanted / pay until April 16th, I knew I would miss out on rent, but I expected her to give one month notice of when she was leaving as per our contract. I assumed she was expecting the same. When I realised her expectations were different I posted for advice on what was reasonable.

Apparently, in renting out my property to someone who wanted to live in it, I have committed original sin . I am scum for even asking whether it’s fair / standard / reasonable to ask for payment under the terms we contractually agreed . Meanwhile I should be exceptionally grateful that my tenant has upheld other aspects of the contract she signed , including through cleaning up after herself, and other such acts of exceptional generosity.

Many people on this thread have pointed out how decent my tenant has been. Has it ever occurred to you that part of the reason for that is I that have been a decent landlord? As a pp said, it’s tit for tat. She’s had an exceptionally good deal for three years. I now need the property back, and I feel bad. But that’s the way it is

I am really confused and intrigued by those people on this thread stating authoritatively (but with no actual reference to the law) that legally in the UK, the tenant has to serve counter-notice to the OP's original notice, which I understand was a Section 21, because the tenant is leaving earlier than the final contractual date notified by the OP. I see other landlords and estate agents with experience of these things saying what I think, which is that I would be grateful if the tenant were moving without a fuss/leaving the property in a good state in the LL's notified time span and paying for no longer than the day they hand over their keys. Nowhere can I find any reference to the law on this, though I may not be looking in the right places. The main concern on any websites referring to the serving of Section 21, like Shelter or gov.uk, is that the tenant could refuse to move after the notified date, at which point, the landlord will have a lot more trouble on their hands than a couple of months' lost rent and spend time and money evicting the tenant.
Anyhow, @Golaz, I wish you well with your move and I hope that you and your family are very happy when you move back into your home.

OP still being a CF I see lmao

I naturally assumed the place had been professionally inventoried (with photos, etc) at the start of the the let, and that the deposit had been protected. It’s illegal to skip the latter step and plain stupid to skip the former. I’ve never had a problem with deductions because I have overwhelming photographic evidence (if needed). This is just common sense and anyone who doesn’t practice it shouldn’t be a landlord.

Yes we did these things. In any case I don’t anticipate it will be an issue thankfully.

I suppose you’ve only ever had this one tenant.

You aren’t an experienced LL. But many experienced LLs have posted on this thread and given you a wider context in which to understand and judge the situation. However, you haven’t been willing to see your situation in this wider context.

The wider context of renting and giving notice to tenants, and regaining the property, is simply that it’s often extremely fraught. Tenants can perfectly legally remain beyond their notice period and require legal proceedings to legally evict them which can take mo this or more than a year. Properties are often not left in a good state. So, in the wider context, yes you should be glad you aren’t facing those issues. There’s no need to be extremely grateful, but you should be able to see the positive situation you’re in, within that broader context and understand that you’ve been fortunate…not simply that you’ve had what was due to you and that the tenant willingly signed up to. You should appreciate that even more, given you acknowledge yourself that you’ve been ‘clueless’ and aren’t a professional LL - as such, there was and remains more scope for you to be bitten.

So, it looks like you’ve sorted an agreement with the tenant that is mutually agreeable and it looks like you will receive your property back on the date you expect in a good condition. Of course, nothing is confirmed until the tenant is gone and you’ve seen the property. Assume nothing. Again, experienced LLs will tell you that you never know what might happen. If you ‘get away’ with a positive outcome here, it sounds like you’ve been lucky. You say you’ve been a good LL, and quite what you mean by that, we don’t know, but of course you should have been. Unfortunately, as there are bad tenants out there, we know there are also bad LLs. One feature of being a bad LL is quite simply not knowing your legal obligations and therefore not knowing how to respond to different scenarios.

Hopefully you have ‘got away with it’. We can all see that at no point are you going to acknowledge that you’ve been fortunate with your tenant, or in how this looks like it’s worked out. You purely see that this is the legal agreement and expect it to be adhered to, without showing any appreciation of the reality, that this often doesn’t happen. With more time in the market, I suspect your view of it would be a bit different, and on a range of issues, you’d be willing to ‘let things go’ and have more of a sense of when you were in a good position and things you could do/not do to encourage that to continue. But you’re getting out of the market. It sounds like it’s not been a bad experience for you. We don’t know what your tenant would say.

Not all tenants and landlords are at war with each other, there are good
and bad on both sides.

No doubt I will be spat on by certain posters here for being ‘greedy’ simply for being a landlord, but I am feeling smug rather than scum.

Message from me to agent regarding deposit:
“Deductions will not be required. If you contact the previous tenants please let them know how much we appreciated the way they looked after the property.”

Reply from agent:
Hi,
Your tenant advised: We also want to thank them for being great landlords and so kind and understanding.

How lovely!
Many thanks,
(Agent)

i said I was feeling smug.

I agree, @TrickyD, I’ve only had one dodgy landlord and even he wasn’t too bad, just slow getting things done.
The others were fine.

In a nutshell, you asked your tenant to leave by a certain date. But because she found somewhere quickly you want to penalise her instead of being grateful it was so easy. I bet you vote Tory.

The requirement to give notice is common law and sets out that tenants should give notice of one period. The ‘period’ concerned is outlined in Section 5 of the Housing Act 1988, in that if you have a rolling month to month tenancy you should give one months notice. The notice given by OP doesn’t override the tenants need to give notice (counter serve), which should be done in writing.

That does not mean that the OP and her tenant cannot come to a mutual agreement outside of this. I am just answering the question concerning the law.