Renewing a Tenancy

One of the most frequently asked question from our landlords is ‘what to do at the end of a tenancy?’

A six month tenancy is coming to an end. You are happy with your tenant and they want to continue with the tenancy. What should you do now?

Well the simple answer is that you don’t actually have to do anything. This is because once a fixed term tenancy comes to an end, it will automatically become what is known in the legal jargon as a: Statutory periodic tenancy

Statutory periodic tenancy

A statutory periodic tenancy runs on from one rent period to another on exactly the same terms as the proceeding fixed term tenancy.

How do I manage this situation within the Property Manager?

How you manage the tenancy within our FREE property management software will depend on what you decide to do with the tenancy. If you do decide to let the tenancy run on. Then it’s simple – do absolutely nothing. The rent book will continue to generate rents even after the end of any fixed term tenancy. The only way to bring to a stop the rent generation is for you to end the tenancy.

Editing a tenancy

Another way of dealing with the extension of a tenancy is to alter the terms of the fixed terms tenancy to extend it. For instance you could extend the terms of a six month tenancy to 12 months. You will need to get the tenant to sign the alteration to acknowledge that they are happy with the amendment.

To do this in the Property Manager you just need to go to the Management tab and select Tenancy option. Click on, or select the tenancy you require and you will be shown the tenancy overview. Then just click the blue hyperlink text at the bottom of the screen to ‘edit tenancy’.

You then will be able to put in the revised tenancy term and end date. This means that you will continue to receive the reminder for the end of tenancy on the correct date.

Creating a new fixed term tenancy

If you decide instead to end the existing tenancy and set up a new fixed term tenancy then you will have to end the existing tenancy and set up a new one. Landlords often do this so they and the tenant have the security of knowing that they have a minimum of a six month tenancy.

To do this a landlord needs to go to the Management tab, select Tenancy option and then the tenancy that they want to end.

You will then be shown the overview of the tenancy and a number of blue hyperlinked options. Select the ‘end the tenancy’ option. You are then asked for the end tenancy option date and the move out date of the tenant.

You will then be presented with the rent for the final rental period. Click ‘confirm end tenancy’ and the tenancy will be ended and no further rents will be generated. You will then be given the option to add in any outstanding rents. To fill in the outstanding rental payment, click on the ‘rent payments’ link listed at the bottom of the tenancy overview.

The Property Management software will show the outstanding rent payments ticked. Just click save to confirm these rent payments. The tenancy is then shown as historic with all the rents paid.

Setting up a new tenancy

For those landlords who have chosen to carry on with a fixed term tenancy then they will need to set up a new fixed term tenancy. The terms of the fixed term tenancy should have been already agreed in advance with the tenant.

To do this in the Property Management software you just need to go through the process of adding a new tenancy. Go to tenancy and then click on the ‘Add tenancy’ link and then complete the procedure of adding a new tenancy. You existing tenants details should already be stored within the Property Management Software.

What should I do?

Most landlords opt to let the tenancy become a periodic tenancy.

This has a number of advantages.

Firstly, for landlords that have served the section 213 notice and protected the deposit under the tenancy deposit scheme. They will not need to go through the rigmarole of having to contact the protecting organisation and getting them to change the deposit protection details.

In addition if a landlord has served a section 21 notice under the previous tenancy then it will no longer be valid under any new tenancy.

Improvements to the Property Management Software

Property Hawk is always looking to improve our property management software. For instance we have just added a section 8 notice to our list of FREE forms stored within the property management software. In October we updated our tax system to allow landlords to calculate their own property tax liabilities for submission in their self submission tax returns.

What we always want to know is could we make things even easier to use. Could we make the renewal of a tenancy in the software simpler? Perhaps by adding a ‘continue tenancy link’ which ends a fixed term tenancy and then automatically launches the set up procedure for a new concurrent fixed term tenancy.