Since 1 May 2026, when phase one of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 came into force, no assured tenancy in England has a fixed term. Every letting now runs as an assured periodic tenancy, including the ones signed last year, which converted automatically and are treated as continuing tenancies rather than new ones. For a couple in a one-bed, that is mostly good news. For four people on one joint tenancy in a Hackney terrace, it means the housemate who has gone quiet about their new job in Manchester can end the tenancy for all four of you by posting a single letter, and nobody has to agree to it.
That is not a drafting quirk. It is the ordinary common law rule for periodic tenancies, confirmed by the House of Lords in Hammersmith and Fulham LBC v Monk: a periodic joint tenancy continues only if every joint tenant wants it to, so a notice to quit from one ends it for all. The fixed term used to shield you from this for the first six or twelve months. That shield has gone.
What one housemate's notice actually does
The mechanics come from section 5 of the Housing Act 1988 as amended by the Renters' Rights Act. A tenant's notice to quit must be in writing, must give at least two months unless the landlord has agreed a shorter period in writing, and must expire at the end of a rental period. Get those three things right and the notice is valid.
If it is a joint tenancy, valid means valid against everybody named on it. On the expiry date, the tenancy ends. The remaining sharers have no automatic right to stay, no right to be offered a replacement agreement, and no fixed term to fall back on because fixed terms no longer exist.
In practice most landlords will offer the remaining tenants a fresh tenancy, because an empty flat earns nothing. But it is a new tenancy on new terms, which means a new rent, a new deposit arrangement, and a new set of names. Russell-Cooke's analysis of the Act notes that around 44% of tenancies were already being ended by tenant notice before the reforms, so this is not a rare event you can safely ignore.
Two things follow immediately. Ask, before you sign anything, who is on the agreement with you. And read the whole document, not the summary email; our guide to what to look for in a tenancy agreement covers the clauses that matter most.
Deed of assignment: the swap that keeps the tenancy alive
The defence against the one-notice problem is to replace the leaver rather than let them serve notice. The instrument for that is a deed of assignment: the outgoing tenant transfers their interest in the tenancy to the incoming one, the remaining tenants stay put, and the tenancy continues unbroken. No notice to quit, no end date, no renegotiated rent.
It needs the landlord's agreement, and it needs to be done properly: a deed signed by the outgoing tenant, the incoming tenant, the continuing tenants and the landlord. If there are guarantors, the outgoing tenant's guarantor should be formally released by a separate deed, otherwise someone's parents remain on the hook for a flat their child no longer lives in.
What to say to the agent, in one line: "We want to assign the tenancy to an incoming sharer by deed rather than serve notice, so the tenancy continues. Can you confirm your fee under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Tenant Fees Act?"
That phrasing does two useful things. It signals you know the tenancy will otherwise end for everyone, which is the landlord's problem too. And it puts the fee on the record before anyone starts drafting.
What the swap can lawfully cost
The Tenant Fees Act 2019 bans most letting fees but keeps a short list of permitted payments, and a change of sharer sits on that list. Under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1, a landlord or agent may charge for the variation, assignment or novation of a tenancy at the tenant's request, capped at £50, or the reasonable costs actually incurred if those are higher and can be evidenced.
"Reasonable costs" is where agents push. In one First-tier Tribunal case discussed widely in the trade press, an agent had charged £393.54 for an assignment; the tribunal's approach to figures well above £50 without hard evidence of cost has been notably unsympathetic. If you are quoted £200 for what is a template deed and a scheme update, ask for the itemised costs in writing. Most agents fold at that point.
| What you are asked to pay | Lawful? |
|---|---|
| £50 for a deed of assignment on a change of sharer | Yes, this is the statutory default cap |
| More than £50, with itemised evidence of actual costs | Only to the extent the costs are reasonable and evidenced |
| More than £50, "our standard admin fee" | No evidence, no charge. Challenge it |
| A fresh referencing fee for the incoming sharer | Prohibited as a payment from the tenant |
| A new "renewal fee" for the continuing tenants | Prohibited |
| A rent increase attached to the swap | Only by the statutory route, with notice, and challengeable |
If the landlord uses the change of sharer as the moment to raise the rent, remember the increase has to come by the statutory notice route with at least two months' notice, and you can take it to the First-tier Tribunal. We set out how that works in challenging a London rent increase at the tribunal.
The deposit when only one person leaves
There is one deposit, protected once, for the tenancy as a whole. It is not four separate deposits, and no part of it is repaid when one person goes.
If the tenancy continues by assignment, the protection generally continues to be valid. mydeposits' guidance for landlords is that the scheme should be told about the change and sent a copy of the deed of assignment, after which the prescribed information is amended and must be reissued to the tenants. All three schemes allow a tenant transfer, with the departing tenant's claim on the deposit removed and the incoming tenant's details added.
The money itself is usually settled privately: mydeposits describes it as common practice for the incoming tenant to pay the outgoing tenant the equivalent share directly. That is the moment to be careful, because you are buying someone else's dilapidations along with their room.
Do these four things in the week the swap happens:
- Photograph the leaver's room and the shared areas, dated, before they hand over keys. Agree in writing with the landlord whether any damage is coming out of the deposit at the end.
- Get an updated inventory signed. Shelter's advice to joint tenants is to insist on this whenever the household composition changes.
- Check the deposit is still showing as protected, and that the reissued prescribed information names the new tenant. Search the scheme under the lead tenant's name if you cannot find it.
- Keep a written record of who paid what into the deposit pot. Shelter also warns against paying your share to the departing tenant rather than to the landlord or agent, because it is much harder to prove later.
Clauses worth asking for before you sign
None of this is standard. All of it is negotiable at the point where the agent wants the flat filled.
- A right to assign with the landlord's consent, not to be unreasonably withheld or delayed. Without this, the landlord can simply refuse the swap and let one person's notice end the tenancy for the group.
- An assignment fee fixed at £50 in the agreement. Cheap to ask for, removes the argument entirely.
- A written promise to offer the remaining tenants a new tenancy on the same terms if one tenant serves notice. Not enforceable as a right to stay, but it changes the conversation when it happens.
- Guarantor release on assignment. Say so explicitly, in the same clause.
- Think hard before agreeing a shorter notice period in writing. Section 5 allows the parties to agree less than two months, which sounds tenant-friendly. On a joint tenancy it also means any one of your housemates can end everyone's letting on that shorter notice.
- Nothing requiring more than one month's rent in advance. During a tenancy, any such provision is void under the Act.
Where individual room contracts exist in London, and what the premium buys
The clean way out of joint liability is not to be a joint tenant at all. Three routes exist in London.
Room-only lets in licensed HMOs, common in Zone 2 and 3 across Lewisham, Walthamstow, Tooting and Wood Green, give each sharer their own agreement for their own room with shared use of the kitchen and bathroom. Your housemate's notice ends their letting, not yours. Purpose-built co-living and build-to-rent schemes clustered around Wembley, Canada Water, Stratford and Croydon do the same thing with bills, wifi and cleaning folded into one monthly figure. Lodging with a resident landlord is cheapest of all, but you are an excluded occupier with a licence rather than an assured tenancy, and the protections are thin.
For the comparison, SpareRoom's rental index put the average London room rent at £985 a month in the fourth quarter of 2025, down 0.9% on the year, with inner London at £979 and outer London at £794. The same index recorded £884 in Muswell Hill, £804 in Norwood and £796 in Penge. On the wider market, the ONS price index of private rents had London on 2.2% annual rent inflation in the twelve months to June 2026, the lowest of any English region, against £1,446 for England as a whole.
Against those numbers, a room contract in a managed building typically prices above the local shared-house average. What the premium buys is specific: bills at a fixed price, no liability for a housemate's arrears, and the fact that when someone leaves, finding their replacement is the operator's job rather than yours. Whether that is worth the money depends on how much you trust the four names next to yours on the agreement.