Check Your Occupation Type

The question asked if:

• You pay an annual rent of £100,000 or more
• You pay an annual rent of £250 or £1000 in Greater London
• Your tenancy was granted by your college or Univerity of is Purpose Built Student Accommodation

Like company lets and resident landlord lets, these are all situations where the tenancy will be a common law ‘unregulated’ tenancy and not an assured tenancy.

The reason for this is that these are all tenancy types which the Housing Act 1988 (which set up the assured tenancies), states cannot be an assured tenancy in Schedule 1.

Unregulated tenancies are governed, not by the provisions of any statute, but by the common law rules (see our article here on the common law).

They are similar in many ways to assured  tenancies, but

• They can be granted for a fixed term, eg for six months or a year, whereas assured tenancies are periodic
• The tenant fees rules will not apply
• Deposits do not need to be protected in a scheme, and
• The eviction procedure is different (section 8 and section 21 notices will not apply)

Note that the ‘high rent’ figure of £100,000 was imposed in 2010 and now applies to all tenancies.  Before that, the figure was £25,000.