Hello all.
Our Council have just put forward a proposed tenancy agreement which has been drawn up by the National Association of Local Councils. It is fairly standard other than:
The tenancy may be terminated by either party to this agreement serving on the other not less than 12 months written notice to quit the expiring on or before the 6th day of August or on or after the 29th day of September in any year
My understanding was that it is the 6th day of March not August (Section 1 of the Allotments Act 1950). Is any one aware of an amendment to the 1950 act?
Regards
Bluecar
There's been no extension to the 1950 Act, your council clerk's a numpty (it happens).
Actually the date range comes from Section 1 of the Allotments Act 1922 (and it's neither March nor August, it's April), the 1950 act just extends the statutory minimum 6 months notice of the 1922 act to a statutory minimum of 12 months. It says: "...notice to quit expiring on or before the sixth day of April or on or after the twenty-ninth day of September in any year".
What's more frustrating is that a notice to quit must expire on either the first or last day of the tennancy period - technically a notice to quit doesn't actually terminate a tenancy, it just prevents a periodic tenancy from seamlessly restarting again. A lease is always for a definite period of time (it's a requirement of Section 1 of the Law of Property 1925 - a lease is "a term of years absolute") so an annual periodic tenancy is always for exactly one year, but a legal fudge is that periodic tenancies magically keep growing by another period, and however long it runs for, when you look back it's a perfectly continuous single tenancy, but looking forward it always has a definite end. The notice to quit is that bit of legal fairy dust that breaks the spell and allows the tenancy to end by effluxion of time.
That might not seem overly important, but to be legally enforceable a notice to quit has to be quite precise in a number of details, one of which is that it must name the specific day it expires, and that day must be either the last day of the period or the first day of the next one, either does the trick, but a notice expiring on any other day won't be enforced by a court because it doesn't have that fairy dust-date; a pointless distinction perhaps, but true all the same.
So the effect of Section 1 of the Allotments Act 1922 is that an allotment needs to be let on an annual periodic tenancy with an anniversary some time between 29 September and 6 April, and whatever that date is, that's the date the notice to quit must expire (or the day before - I know, nothing in life is simple, but you're allowed either the first or last day of the period). By statute the landlord must give you a minimum of 12 months, and by common law you must give the landlord a minimum of 6 months, but the tenancy agreement can potentially extend that to 12 months on both sides.
It's possible that the clause extending the common law minimum of 6 months on the tenant is an unfair term under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 because there's no good reason for a landlord to require more than the common law minimum - any allotments landlord can re-let an allotment ten times over so they need vritually no notice at all in order to secure another rent-paying tenant, and a 12 months minimum notice period can potentially lock a tenant into an additional year of paying rent if she finds herself unable to continue with her allotment.
So in a nutshell then, what the tenancy agreement needs to say is - well, nothing really, the common law default is that the council needs to give you 12 months and you need to give the council 6 months notice, and that notice needs to expire on either the first or last day of the period. But for clarity, if a landlord really wants to pad the agreement out, it needs to say something like:
"this is an annual periodic tenancy from 1 December ... either the landlord or tenant can end this tenancy by serving on the other a notice to quit the allotment expiring on either the 30 November or 1 December, and served at least 12 months before it expires."
