Help! I can’t find a suitable short let tenancy agreement.

The difficulty you’re coming up against is due to the “Statutory Protection” given to tenants. It grants them an automatic minimum term of six months without fear of eviction (other than Section 8 that is). So any type of AST tenancy will not suit your needs.

It may be that Airbnb is the right platform for you, but it’s not something I know anything about and probably not something many on here are highly experienced in (although I could be wrong). I guess you could start out by reading their terms and conditions thoroughly and finding out what type of safeguards you have with this type of agreement. I presume it’s a type of holiday let. (?)

Best of luck with your sale.

Reply to the comment left by Neil Patterson at 29/06/2018 – 08:11
They have a tenant lined up.

Reply to the comment left by Kate Mellor at 30/06/2018 – 10:20
Thank you Kate

If your potential tenants are not using the house as their main residence because they have their own home then an AST isn’t the right document and they don’t need the protection of an AST. Divide the expected rent by 30 eg 1900/month/30 and put it on Airbnb for £63 per night. Have your settings on Airbnb to ‘Enquiry Only’ so you have to approve the booking before it’s accepted. This is a precaution against anyone else booking it and obviously you then accept theirs.
Your tenant then books it for the two months only and pays Airbnb at the time of booking. You will of course lose the commission but it’s a loss worth accepting for a two month agreement and the tenants won’t have security of tenure beyond their booking dates.

If you wish to go down the route of holiday letting (the original post said not hence I didn’t follow that line of thought but it doesn’t matter if he lives locally) then it works a bit like a hotel. However you would need to set it up as a business and that is also very onerous, as you would need PLI, register for business rates, check that it is permitted in your area, open a bank account, register with the tax office as self-employed – it’s not the same as a rental property. Airbnb could do some of this for you, but personally I would not use them.

What if the work on his house overruns and you have a sale?

Reply to the comment left by Puzzler at 01/07/2018 – 07:28
If he has previously been renting it out, which I think he has said in later posts, then he should already be registered with HMRC for self-assessment, have a business bank account and the relevant insurances. Agree, he might need planning permission but the worst that can happen is when/if the council find out they tell him he can’t continue, which he doesn’t want to anyway. If it suits both parties the ‘guest’ can book a further four weeks or whatever, but I believe it can’t exceed ninety days anyway, after which he is an illegal occupier without the protection of an AST so has to go.

You can issue a tenancy agreement for 2 months (or any other period you want). As an AST (which it probably will be because it is the main residence for the duration of the works), this means that the tenant can end the tenancy at 2 months or at the end of any month thereafter (if you make it a contractual periodic), but you cannot issue S21 to request possession in the first 4 months of the tenancy, so no court proceedings until after 6 months.

Other than that, just follow the standard tenancy rules, and hope tenant leaves (seems likely as he has his own property).

Alternatively, speak to an experienced solicitor regarding the possibility of it not being a main residence, hence not an AST, and getting an appropriate agreement (maybe a license?).

Reply to the comment left by Barbara Thorning at 01/07/2018 – 14:01
There are some differences between letting and serviced accommodation. You don’t need employer’s liability to let but you do to run a business, it is also a different tax category so you do have to register (you don’t have to register for rental just declare it as it is not treated as a trading business) plus more onerous safety and health regulations

well now, let’s get the labour party to fix this situation

Reply to the comment left by Jay James at 03/07/2018 – 20:20
Steady on Jay we do not need the labour party to screw things up when we have the conservative party doing such a good job.