Periodic Tenancies: The Only Tenancy You Can Now Create

England only

What “periodic” actually means

A periodic tenancy runs in repeating periods — almost always months — and simply continues, period after period, indefinitely. There is no end date written into it and nothing expires.

Landlords used to meet periodic tenancies only at the tail end of a fixed term, when a twelve-month AST rolled over into a statutory periodic tenancy because nobody got round to renewing. That rolled-over state is now the only state. There is no fixed term to precede it.

	Old fixed-term AST	Assured periodic tenancy
Length	Six or twelve months typically	No end date. Continues indefinitely
Tenant leaving early	Bound for the term unless a break clause applied	Two months’ notice, any time
Your income certainty	Guaranteed for the term	Two months at a time
Ending it, landlord	Section 21 after the term, or section 8	Section 8 ground only
Renewal	New agreement or roll to periodic	Nothing to renew
Rent increases	Rent review clause or at renewal	Section 13 notice, once every 52 weeks
Rent period	Any	Monthly or shorter

The asymmetry, stated plainly

A tenant can end the tenancy on two months’ notice from the first day. You cannot end it at all without a ground — and the two most common landlord reasons, selling and moving in, need four months’ notice, can’t be used in the first twelve months, and trigger a twelve-month re-letting ban afterwards.

I don’t think there’s much point pretending this is neutral. It isn’t, and landlords planning around the old assumptions will get caught. The practical consequences worth absorbing:

You can’t rely on a fixed income window. If your figures assume twelve months of guaranteed rent, rebuild them on two. Void risk is now continuous rather than concentrated at term end.

Tenant quality matters more than it did. You’ve lost the ability to wait out a poor tenant until the term expires and then serve a section 21. Referencing and affordability checks are now doing considerably more work — and they remain expressly permitted.

Selling needs planning about sixteen months out. Four months’ notice plus a twelve-month ban from notice expiry. Deciding in March to sell in June is no longer possible with a tenant in place. Full detail on the grounds.

Practical points landlords ask about

When does the tenant’s notice take effect?

It must be at least two months, and government guidance indicates it should expire on or before a rent payment date. Build the two-month minimum into your expectations and check the specific dates rather than assuming a rounded month.

Joint tenants

Any one joint tenant can serve notice, and doing so ends the tenancy for everybody — including sharers who wanted to stay. A shorter notice period has to be agreed with all of them, not just the one leaving.

This catches out student and sharer lets particularly. One person leaving can unravel the whole arrangement, and the remaining occupiers have no automatic right to continue. If you want to keep them, you’re granting a new tenancy on current terms.

Can I ask the tenant to commit for longer?

You can ask. It won’t bind them. Any term purporting to prevent a tenant giving two months’ notice is of no effect, and dressing it up — an incentive that claws back if they leave early, a “loyalty discount” reversed on departure — risks being read as a penalty for exercising a statutory right. I’d steer well clear.

What about rent periods?

A rent period longer than a month is of no effect and the tenancy defaults to monthly. Weekly and fortnightly still work. Quarterly does not.

Questions