A property lawyer has warned that landlords who want to continue charging rent in advance after 1st May will need tenancy agreements that clearly provide for an ongoing rent in advance arrangement.

David Smith, at Spector Constant & Williams, explains that landlords can’t seek more than a month’s rent under the Renters’ Rights Act, however a Lords amendment made it clear that this won’t apply to existing tenancies, meaning that those with rent in advance deals can continue for the life of that tenancy - effectively forever, or at least for the tenant’s lifetime.

In his blog, he says if a tenancy was written as having a rent payable for each six months, then that will be the period, and tenants will need to give six months’ notice. If the agreement specifies an amount of rent as a monthly figure but payable in advance every six months, then that payment provision will carry on after 1st May, but the periods of the tenancy will be monthly, not the six-monthly payment terms and tenants will only need to give two months’ notice.

Worded

“If a tenancy is worded such that the rent is stated as payable every six months, for example, then that will be fine,” adds Smith. “But I see a lot of agreements where the rent is stated as being monthly but payable on two specific dates six months apart and then nothing more is said.

“It is clear that when the tenancy was created then the assumption was that a new tenancy would be entered into after the year with new rent in advance dates in it. But that is no longer going to happen, and that form of wording likely means that the rent will not continue to be payable six-monthly in advance because that is not what the agreement says.”

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