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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Shelter's call for 5 year tenancies

Shelter have been reported as stating that there should be 5 year tenancies to give tenants security.  They state that this is needed as  more and more people are unable to buy their own property and are forced to rent.  However, were does this leave the landlord?

Shelter state that provisions should be put in place to end the tenancy if the landlord wants to sell the property or evict bad tenants - but what defines bad tenants?  Landlords that I work with often have difficulty evicting "bad" tenants but are able to end the tenancy using a Section 21 Notice at the end of the fixed term.  If the tenancy was to run for 5 years the landlord would not have this option until the end of the 5 year term.

Shelter would like to give tenants the option to give two months notice to end the tenancy.   So the situation would be that both parties would feel that the tenancy is secure, but if the tenant wants to end the tenancy they can do so by giving 2 months notice, but the landlord has to put up with tenants unless there are sufficient grounds for a court to evict the tenant.

In my view if the tenants are good the landlord would be more than happy to continue with the tenancy, but if things go wrong the landlord needs to be able to bring the tenancy to an end.

If you require any assistance in bringing a tenancy to an end please contact me at propertyhawk@fidler.co.uk

Rebecca Brough


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2 comments:

Ian T Price said...

It strikes me that Shelter are on a publicity bandwagon issuing all sorts of nonsense PR just to garner column inches.

Their pronouncements have little to do with real issues and a great deal to with the egos of the management.

Anonymous said...

Many of Shelters clients are the very people that Landlords fear to rent to, therefore asking for 5 year tenancy agreements is a bad thing. We know that Shelter do good work in finding the homeless a roof over their heads, but one has to ask how these people came into this situation in the first place, and would they make good neighbours, and not make a pack of trouble for the Landlord?