I have a landlord who is thinking of offering someone a 6 month tenancy but ONLY 6 months and has said I can serve notice at the time of issuing the tenancy agreement. Can you confirm that I’m not going mad and this is no longer possible to do?
If both parties were to agree that the tenancy would end at the end of the fixed term, happy days but otherwise, is the landlord looking at a minimum of 10 months before being able to end the tenancy?
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The first thing is you can’t serve a section 21 notice until after the first four months from when the tenancy commences.
In ordinary times, it’s therefore common to do a six month tenancy and if there were any problems, the landlord could give notice after month four which would expire a few days after the initial six months.
However, at the moment, it’s 6 months notice required so you’re right that even though the tenancy might be 6 months initially, the landlord can’t serve notice until after month four which would then take it to month 10.
Of course, with a six month tenancy, the tenant can just go on the last day and if that’s the plans of all parties that’s fine. The landlord just needs to be aware that if they didn’t go (even if the promised to initially), it would be a long process to get possession at the moment.