One tenant is leaving from joint tenancy agreement?

We are in a similar position except that we are near the end of the fixed tenancy period.
Joint tenants legally remain liable for the rent until the end of the tenancy, but that may or may not give you any comfort.
The cleanest way to deal with it in your case would seem to be to agree an early termination of the joint tenancy and set up a new agreement for tenant B. That is assuming she can aford it on her own.
You will have some additional costs that tenant A may agreee to cover to release herself from that continuing liability.

My opinion only – I’d be glad to hear what others think!

Simplest is to agree to releasing Tenant A with one months written notice AND a letter from Tenant B saying she is in agreement.

Do the checks that Tenant B can afford the rent and then get both to sign and date a Deed of Surrender.

In whose name is the deposit registered under? If both, this will need to be returned to both tenants.

Give Tenant B ALL the pre tenancy documents needed again, a new sole tenant AST and do a new inventory and on signing take a new deposit from Tenant B and put on protection.

I would advise ending the tenancy and starting a new one with the remaining tenant.

Reply to the comment left by Robert Johnson at 13/07/2023 – 17:11
Subject to checking her affordability, don’t get caught out like I did

Get a written and signed letter from the tenant leaving. When one tenant terminates it also applies to the other. Might be an opportunity to sell !

Joint tenants are indivisible. One can’t leave without the tenancy ending for both. Also if its in the fixed term, they can’t end it anyway unless you or the tenancy agreement says they can.
I would suggest you do nothing. Don’t acknowledge formally that this person has left. Tenant A will remain liable for the rent so that if Tenant B defaults, you have two people you can pursue. When the tenancy expires you can offer Tenant A the option of serving notice to end their liability and you can then offer Tenant B a tenancy if you wish.

Joint tenants are indivisible. One can’t leave without the tenancy ending for both. Accept the notice and make sure that Tenant B knows what this means – she needs to leave to UNLESS you do affordability checks on her and these prove ok and you WANT to let to her soley and offer her her own AST. You can date if from the day after the last tenancy ends, but yes serve all the gas , elec H3R and EICR and do a new inventory before she takes this over .

You could state the AST starts at 5pm say giving you time from when Tenant A has left and you have inspected for any damages etc BEFORE you do the new inventory etc.
Will Tenant B need her part of the released deposit back before she can pay you the next full deposit if she takes the AST on in her own name? If she is banking on this you might find you have to start the AST a few days later – where does she live in between?

Assuming you have Rent Guarantee in place, just make sure that the tenant staying on earns annually enough to cover the annual rent by a minimum of 2.5 times, otherwise you’ll invalidate your RG cover. If you don’t have RG cover, I strongly suggest you immediately do as it’s reasonable in cost & hopefully you’ll never need to call on it for rent arrears or eviction costs but if you do, you’ll be delighted you had the foresight to put this cover in place.

Reply to the comment left by DSR at 14/07/2023 – 19:20
The landlord can’t accept an invalid notice against one tenants wishes. It would be too easy to overturn at court.

The lease for joint tenancies is indivisible, but it may name a ‘lead tenant’ responsible for the deposit.
This gives the lead tenant legal authority to deal with negotiations and accept return of the deposit on behalf of both tenants at the end of the tenancy.
It excludes the possibility of dispute between tenants cluding the issue of deposit returns.