6 or 12 month lease?

[mdawson29]

Hi all, I'm new here and this is my first thread.

 

Firstly I need to say, WOW, what a great forum and, as a letting agent, it is good to read up on tenants issues and concerns and definately take a few pointers on how not to treat my tenants.

 

But now to get to the point, I usually do a 6 month AST. I now have a tenant wanting to sign a 12 month AST.

 

I have heard through the 'grapevine' that another agent doesn't do a 12 month AST as the tenant has more rights from a 12 month AST. So this agent rather does a 364 day AST.

 

Has anybody else heard about this, if yes, can the differences please be explained to me.

 

Thanks

[Steve__M]

Hi all, I'm new here and this is my first thread.

 

Firstly I need to say, WOW, what a great forum and, as a letting agent, it is good to read up on tenants issues and concerns and definately take a few pointers on how not to treat my tenants.

 

But now to get to the point, I usually do a 6 month AST. I now have a tenant wanting to sign a 12 month AST.

 

I have heard through the 'grapevine' that another agent doesn't do a 12 month AST as the tenant has more rights from a 12 month AST. So this agent rather does a 364 day AST.

 

Has anybody else heard about this, if yes, can the differences please be explained to me.

 

Thanks

 

I rented a property about 15 years ago where the agent used to do "year less a day" tenancies for some reason. But that was a looong time ago.

 

I'm pretty sure that there is no difference (other than the length) between regulation of 6 month and 12 month tenancies. I think that beyond 3 years there is a difference.

[danielr]

to be honest, they probably don't want to pay estate agents fees again for a while.

 

I, for example, live in a shared house, there are four of us, we all arrived at the same time and will all leave at the same time, the estate agents charge for credit checks and drawing up paper work. after 6 months to extend out contracts the estate agents charged us a kind of continuation for the credit checks, (half the checks again), and charged us for drawing up new contracts. all of that amounted to about £200 between us.

 

personally, when I move to a place I like to have a 6 month contract to start, that way if I find that I don't like the place, or the neighbours are idiots, the location doesn't quite suit etc I can leave relatively soon. once I know I like it I want to sign 12 month contracts so that I can avoid the estate agents (and their fee's) as much as possible.

[mdawson29]

Thanks to you all for your replies.

 

I don't charge tenants for another credit check and I don't charge the tenant for another agreement. I'm just happy to know that I'll get the income from my commission charged to the landlord for another 6 or 12 months. I do however charge the landlord to do another agreenment (only £50), this saves him from paying me my another finders fee and having the property vacant and not earning income.

 

I haven't started my business to rob people and charge unnecessary charges. I think letting agent fees and charges should be regulated.