The Assured shorthold tenancy is the most common form of tenancy in the private rented sector today. But did you know the following five facts?
- Most tenancies are automatically an assured shorthold tenancy, whether or not the landlord gives you a written tenancy agreement
- However, if your landlord does not give you a tenancy agreement, he cannot evict you using the special ‘accelerated’ possession procedure
- If you move into a property under an assured shorthold tenancy and think the rent is a bit high, you can refer this to the Rent Assessment Panel for review. You can find out more about this here. However you might want to think twice about doing this if you want to stay in your property long term, as challenging the rent will not endear you to your landlord!
- Your landlord cannot use the section 21 procedure to evict you before the fixed term of your tenancy has come to an end, unless there is a break clause in your tenancy agreement
- If your landlord serves a section 21 notice on you after your fixed term has ended, and it does not say “section 21 of the Housing Act 1988” on it anywhere, it will be invalid.
Do have any little known facts about ASTs to share?
Tenants will find lots more information about their assured shorthold tenancy and the section 21 eviction procedure on my main Landlord Law web-site.