Here is a question to the blog clinic from Vanessa (not her real name) who is a tenant.
I signed an assured short hold tenancy agreement in December 2015 with two other tenants for 6 months.
Since then 2 different people have moved in and the landlord has never asked them to sign a contract.
We are now all looking to leave and therefore I was wondering;
1 Are we all bound by the terms of the contract?
2 Is it only me that is bound by it?
3 Is that contract void as two of the named tenants have left?
Answer
If you signed a tenancy agreement in 2015, it will presumably be continuing as a periodic tenancy. A periodic tenancy is a new tenancy but on the same terms as the original fixed term and will be with the same people.
So your periodic tenancy will probably be with yourself, your former co-tenants and the landlord.
It is possible though, that one of your former co-tenants may have served a ‘Notice to Quit’ on your landlord. If this was done during a periodic tenancy, then this will have ended the tenancy completely. If the landlord continued to accept rent then a new tenancy will have been created under section 54(2) of the Law of Property Act 1925. This says that a tenancy does not need to be a written document and can be created by a landlord accepting rent from a tenant in occupation of a property.
This new tenancy will probably be between the landlord and whoever was living in the property and paying rent at the time and could be on the same terms as the original tenancy agreement. Although it is hard to say for sure without knowing what happened.
Of course, we have no idea whether this has happened or not. A Notice to Quit served in these circumstances will end the tenancy even if the other tenants know nothing about it.
If no Notice to Quit was served, then the tenants of the original tenancy agreement will still be the legal tenants. The other occupiers will be there as your lodgers.
So in the light of this, let’s answer your questions:
1 Are we all bound by the terms of the contract?
It depends. You will be. Probably.
If the others are tenants, then maybe. It could depend on whether you showed them the contract before they moved in. They cannot be bound by the terms of a contract they have never seen.
2 Is it only me that is bound by it?
Probably. Although if the tenancy was ended by Notice to Quit at some stage it will be hard to say what the terms of any new tenancy will be.
3 Is that contract void as two of the named tenants have left?
No. A tenancy does not end just because someone moves out.
If you had ALL moved out and then the landlord went in and changed the locks, THAT would have ended the tenancy.
The most likely scenario is that the tenants who moved out did not serve a Notice to Quit on the landlord. Which means that you will all three still be bound by the terms of the tenancy and liable to pay rent.
What you should do
If you all three want to leave, then there is no problem.
Serve a Notice to Quit on your landlord and move out. The Notice to Quit will serve to end whatever tenancy you have.
Note that the notice should give the landlord at least one full period notice. So if you pay monthly and your old fixed term ended on the 5th of the month (and so your monthly tenancy will run from the 6th to the 5th of the month), give the landlord at least one months notice, to end at the next 5th day of the month after one month.
The notice period will be between one and two months, depending on when in the month you serve it.