Renewing lease to tenants - should I?

[marly2]

Very amateur landlord here, renting a second owned property. I’m not up to date on labour’s plans but know that lots of landlords are getting out of the market so I’m not sure if I should change what I’m doing about financial security. I’m a single parent due to retire with minimal pension, after years of self employment and a little teacher pension, in 6 years. I have had the same tenants in a rental property for 8 years, who are due to renew in a couple of months and are happy living there. I’m worrying about whether, after this length of tenancy, they will get increased rights in the property with new laws coming in for tenants and am not sure whether I should sell since the general feeling I’m picking up is that landlords are thinking the whole rental thing is not a great idea any more. Or is there a way of breaking the tenancy and renewing it, without having to redo the whole place after their lengthy tenancy, disturb them, and readvertise? I was hoping rent of around £1k would help me live in retirement years, though at present I’m taxed at higher rate due to my employment income. Selling now would incur quite a tax loss. I don’t have a mortgage on the property, so this is where my personal savings sit. Does anyone know, with this scenario, if there is increasing risk in renewing the tenancy?

Since they sound like good, reliable tennants, what bit of the new bills increase in Tennants rights are you worried about?

From what I gather the new bill would apply to existing and new contracts so breaking their tenancy seems odd to me and may lead them to distrust you and go elsewhere.

Thank you @RuffledKestrel. I wasn’t sure about what was being suggested removing fixed term tenancies and whether that meant there was somehow no time limit. The tenancy has simply been renewed annually, to date. I also remembered reading something in the papers about tenants having right to stay if they had been in the property a certain amount of time but having read through the information on the bill I can’t find that. They have been reasonably good tenants yes and are certainly happy there.

The new legislation will mean: you can’t evict without good reason ( not paying rent for a few months at least, anti social behaviour, or you need to sell the property, or you need to move into the property yourself). Also, tenants can end a tenancy with one months notice whenever they like, with no penalty ( that’s the no fixed term tenancy bit). If none of those worry or apply to you there’s probably no need to take action as they are good enough tenants . If you don’t have much pension I would have thought it’s worth keeping the property.

It doesn’t sound as if it would make financial sense for you to sell the property now, given the tax implications. If your tenants want to stay, I’d wait and reassess when you’re retired, as your tax status will presumably have changed then. Your tenants may also be interested in purchasing the property if they’ve been there long term.