Charges to tenant on early termination of tenancy?
My friend agreed to early termination of the tenancy under the – following clause
11. In the event of a surrender of this Tenancy by agreement between the Landlord and the Tenant, the Tenant will pay the Landlord the sum of £250 towards the administrative costs generated thereby.
The tenant is challenging the clause
What can I charge if a replacement tenant has been found?
Where a suitable replacement tenant is found and the landlord has agreed to an early termination of the tenancy, you can only charge the tenant rent until the new tenancy has started. If you do not stand to lose any rent because of a tenant’s decision to leave, you would not be permitted to consider lost rent in any fee you wish to charge for early termination.
However, you could reasonably charge a fee to cover any referencing and advertising costs that you have incurred as a result of a tenant leaving early, but you should be able to provide evidence to demonstrate these costs.
My friend is not charging for any rent lost, but as per the above clause (11) is charging for administration cost only. Is my friend legally correct to charge the administration cost?
Many thanks
Kirtikumar
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Member Since March 2015 - Comments: 1969 - Articles: 1
12:16 PM, 29th August 2019, About 7 years ago
If I understand that correctly, it means we’re now living in a period of history of ‘peak legislation’ whereby laws are colliding with circumstances take different interpretations under different acts. Personally I don’t believe an SPT should ever be considered a new tenancy, which should apply not only here but across the board. There are far too many occurrences of this sort of ambiguity in this industry alone.
Member Since July 2013 - Comments: 1996 - Articles: 21
12:30 PM, 29th August 2019, About 7 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Luke P at 29/08/2019 – 12:16
I don’t disagree.
I have a theory/fear that the Parliamentary draftsmen or draftswomen dealing the landlord/tenant legislation deliberately make it unnecessarily complex so landlords get tripped up over technicalities. The TFA contains numerous traps as my articles on Property 118 explain. The rules on Prescribed Information forms are over-kill and many a landlord has been ambushed in court and fined over a technicality. Even the requirements to give out the How to Rent guide are unclear: it must be given to “the tenant” so handing it over before the tenancy is signed is, as a matter of well-understood law, wrong because the recipient is not the tenant until the tenancy has been completed. I think the draftsman reads the Guardian and New Statesman and hates all landlords.
Rant over.