Why does my tenancy agreement say rent needs to be paid in advance?

Here is a question to the blog clinic from Abdul (not his real name) who is a tenant

I moved into private rented accomodation and have tenancy agreement for 12 months. On contract says

‘rent is payable in advance and is due upon the tenth day of each rental period (moved in 10th) the first payment is to be made on or before the signing of this agreement. Each subsequent payment should be paid by standing order on or before the tenth day of each calender month throughout the tenancy.’

I already made the first rent payment on the day I moved in so I am confused because if I should pay the next rent payment in advance if anyone can help I would appreciate it.

Answer

The reason the clause is worded this way is that by default, under the ‘common law’ rent is payable in arrears.

If there is no clause in your tenancy agreement saying that rent is payable in advance, it will be payable after you have lived in the relevant month rather than before.

So if you paid your initial months rent at the time you moved in, you would not then be liable to pay anything for almost two months. You would then pay every month with your last month’s rent payable at the time you move out.

Obviously, landlords don’t want this, so all tenancy agreements say that rent should be payable in advance.

I discussed the old ‘rent in arrears’ rule and why it might have come about, in the post here.