Ending a tenancy

Ending your own tenancy

If you want to end your tenancy you must give us four weeks’ notice in accordance with the tenancy agreement. If you have a joint tenancy, both tenants must agree. If one of the joint tenants doesn’t want the tenancy to end you will need to seek advice from the Citizens Advice or a solicitor. Should this be the case, please contact us to discuss this before serving notice.

Ending a tenancy on behalf of someone else

If the resident doesn’t have capacity to terminate their tenancy, we can only accept notice from someone who acts as an attorney with the authority to deal with the resident’s property and financial affairs. If the resident does not have an attorney, you should contact your community housing officer who will be able to give advice on who needs to be contacted and how to proceed. Sometimes it will be possible for a GP or a social worker to help in this situation.

Ending a tenancy after a bereavement

We realise this is a difficult time and we will work with you to ensure that the end of tenancy is dealt with sensitively. We can only accept notice from an executor of the resident’s estate or an authorised person with a grant of representation – sometimes known as ‘grant of probate’, ‘letters of administration’ or ‘letters of administration with a will’.

If none of these apply, once we are notified of a death, we will serve a notice on the public trustee that will formally end the tenancy, this is a four-week notice. Please note that all state benefits end upon death of a resident. Therefore, if the resident was in receipt of housing benefit or universal credit, no rent benefits will cover the rent charges during the notice period. To notify various local and national agencies, not including SHS, about someone’s death you can use the government’s ‘tell us once’ service.

What happens next?

Once we receive a request to terminate a tenancy, we will write to you and confirm the date the tenancy will end.

A visit will be arranged to meet at the property to check the condition and agree what works need to be done and what items must be cleared, in accordance with the tenancy agreement. This will help avoid any rechargeable costs after the keys are handed back to us.

You will need to continue making rent payments until the tenancy ends if the rent hasn’t already been paid in advance.