Hello
House has an adviser who, rather pleasantly, likes to ask House rather interesting questions. Today this excellent adviser asked something along the lines of ‘If a Court grants a suspended possession order (ie possession in 14 days but suspended on the terms of rent plus x) in regards to a fixed term tenancy then when that fixed term tenancy ends and a new statutory periodic tenancy arises is the order of any effect. Does the order ‘carry over’ to the new statutory periodic tenancy in that if the tenant doesn’t pay their rent can the LL apply for a warrant? Does section 7 (7) help even though the fixed term hadn’t come to an end at the making of the order?
House didn’t really have an answer for said adviser. Any assistance appreciated!
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That is a good question.
Practically I’ve never seen an AST with a SPO, or at least one that wasn’t promptly ended via S.21 in any event, and I doubt the situation you describe would ever arise.
This is assuming that the statutory periodic would take effect as a ‘new’ tenancy, which I rather think it would – at least that is my view for tenancy deposit issues.
s.7(7) is more of a saving provision for a claim started prior to the expiry of the fixed term, which comes to court after stat periodic has begun. In terms of the likely court timescale, this is a far more realistic scenario. In my opinion, it would also cover an SPO – so breach of the terms of the SPO would lead to the original PO being enforced, date of possession given and Fixed term tenancy ended retrospectively and with it, the statutory periodic which then could not have arisen (retrospectively).
Might something similar happen in your scenario – the fixed term terminated retrospectively, so the stat periodic could not, now, have arisen? Dunno.