Tacit relocation: Lease automatically repeats

The lease will repeat (tacitly relocate) under exactly the same terms and conditions with one exception: the maximum length of time that a lease can repeat is one year.

Many social landlords grant leases that are of a short duration. Where an assured tenancy is of one month's duration, for example, it will tacitly relocate on a monthly basis. Private landlords, however, tend to offer leases that are much longer (perhaps of six months' or one year's duration). A short assured tenancy of six months' duration, for example, will repeat itself in six-monthly cycles until one of the parties signals, through delivery of the correct notice, that this should stop.

There are statutory requirements about how the notice to end the contract must be given. Where the lease is of more than four months' duration, the minimum period of notice to be given is 40 clear days. [1] For leases of a shorter duration, the minimum is one-third of the duration, [2] subject to the absolute minimum in residential leases of 28 clear days. [3] These time limits, however, are the statutory minima. The parties may have stipulated a longer period in the lease.

So, for example, where a lease begins on 1 January and ends on 31 December, the landlord must give 40 clear days' notice. This means that there must be 40 days between the date when the tenant receives the notice and the expiry date of the lease. If the landlord forgets to do this and serves a notice to quit that only gives, for example, 28 clear days' notice, then the lease will automatically repeat on the same terms and conditions, including the rent figure. The landlord will have to wait another 12 months before the contract can be ended.

Landlords may, however, pre-empt this potential problem by providing in the lease that the duration will be for one year initially and monthly thereafter, for example. In this situation, on the expiry of the initial year, the lease's duration will run in monthly cycles. Advisers should be particularly aware of the requirement for two months' notice in the case of short assured tenancies, even if the lease runs on a monthly cycle. See the section on short assured tenancies for more information.