AST with 6-month break clause

[toadhillflax]

Have just been chatting with a letting agent about a house we want to rent. She said it would be a 12-month AST, with a 6-month break clause requiring 2 month's notice on each side.

I realise the devil is in the detail, so I will check the lease carefully before signing, but assuming this is your bog standard AST with break clause, I have two questions:

1. What is the earliest I could leave the property? Is at 6 months (i.e. serve notice at 4 months) or at 8 months (have to wait until 6 months before I can serve)?

2. Is the 2 months notice period related to the date I wish to move out (e.g. if want to move out on 25th Dec, I would serve notice on the 25 Oct) or is it related to the original start date of my lease (e.g if my lease started on the 1st April and I want to move out on the 25 Dec it would mean I would have to give notice on the 1 Oct)?

Thanks in advanc

1. 6 months

2. Notice periods are against the date you sign the tenancy agreement (so if you give notice 'mid-month' you pay for 2.5 months from that point)

You are basically signing two sequential 6 month ASTs, but this is better as you'll pay the arrangement fee once.

Thank you!

Best of all of course, would be to sign a 6 month AST, and then go on to a rolling periodic (as then we would only have to give 1 month's notice) but the letting agent said their landlord wouldn't do that.

We're planning to buy, so want as much flexibility as possible. The two month's notice being linked to the date signed is a bit of a bummer - it must be very hard to judge the best day to give notice during the conveyancing process, when you are looking at 2-3 months in advance. How do people do it?

The letting agent originally told me (when I paid the holding deposit) that the break clause would mean that we give 1 month, and landlord gives 2 months. She admits she got that wrong. So perhaps I should go back and insist the break clause is 1 month for me, or even that its calculated as 2 calendar months, rather than being linked to the date signed. But this is the only house on the market, and we're exchanging this week so need to move asap....

Thanks smalltown, I've asked for a copy of the AST, so I'll take a look, and post the break clause here for advice if anything isn't clear!

Every time I've had a tenant who wants to leave before their official notice period I have said if I can find a new tenant they're welcome to go early (and pointed out this means them being extra tidy, helpful and friendly with viewings!). I've always managed to do so. As long as I've not got a gap

The downside is if you force the point on the 1-month notice you're making it very clear to the landlord that you're not in it for the long haul and they may prefer to wait for a tenant who intends to stay longer than 6 months.

Re: exchange/completion/notice. If your vendors are agreeable you might be able to exchange contracts and then complete two months later. We're in a rental at the moment waiting to exchange contracts (although we're on a 1-month notice period as we've been here 3 years. Based on my experience of (so far) 2 purchases falling through within a couple of days/hours of the supposed exchange rate there is no way in hell I would now give notice before contracts are actually exchanged. Not even an hour before. Our purchase fell through last week the morning of the day of exchange.

But in reality you're probably going to have to budget for some overlap. Have you considered a short let if this is not acceptable?