What an assured periodic tenancy is

An assured periodic tenancy is the only kind of assured tenancy you can grant in England. It runs from one rent period to the next, continuing indefinitely, until either the tenant ends it or a court orders possession. It has a start date and no end date, because there is no longer such a thing as a fixed term.

If you are here because you were looking for an assured shorthold tenancy, that is why you cannot find one. ASTs were abolished by the Renters' Rights Act on 1 May 2026, and they went for tenancies that were already running as well as new ones. There was no transition and nothing to opt into: a tenancy granted in 2023 is now periodic too.

What "periodic" actually means

The tenancy runs in periods matching the rent — monthly, where rent is paid monthly. At the end of each period it simply continues into the next one. Nothing has to be renewed, extended, agreed again or signed again for that to happen. Continuing is the default state, and it carries on being the default state for as long as nobody does anything.

That is the inversion worth sitting with. A fixed-term tenancy was a thing that ended unless you acted. A periodic tenancy is a thing that continues unless somebody acts.

There is no end date to point at

This sounds like a technicality and is not. A great deal of ordinary letting administration used to hang off the end of the term, and the hook has been removed rather than moved:

• No expiry to diary. Nothing prompts you at month twelve, because nothing happens at month twelve.
• No term to state. A tenancy agreement has no length to record. If you are working from an old template with a term clause in it, that clause is describing something that no longer exists.
• No natural moment to review the rent, the certificates or the paperwork. They all still need doing. They just no longer arrive attached to a date.

We wrote about the practical side of that — what to diary instead, and why certificate expiry dates are the better anchor — in what the Renters' Rights Act actually changed for a private landlord.

How it ends

Only two ways, and they are not symmetrical.

The tenant can end it by giving notice. How much notice depends on the agreement and on the law rather than on anything you set, and it is one of the things worth having stated plainly in writing rather than assumed.

You can only end it through Section 8: a notice stating a statutory ground, followed if necessary by a possession claim. There is no route that does not require a ground, because Section 21 was abolished by the same Act that made every tenancy periodic. The grounds, and the very different notice periods attached to them, are set out in what a Section 8 notice is, and how much notice it has to give.

The practical asymmetry: a tenant can leave on notice, and you cannot ask them to leave without a reason the law recognises. That is the change the Act was written to make, and it is the one to plan around rather than work against.

"Renewal" still exists, but it means something different

There is no renewal in the sense of a tenancy that would otherwise expire. There can still be a renewal in the sense of ending one tenancy and granting a fresh one to the same tenant — which is what you would do to change the terms, since a periodic tenancy that nobody ends carries its original terms indefinitely.

That is now a choice rather than a deadline, and the distinction matters. Nothing forces the moment on you, so if the terms still suit both sides, a tenancy running for years without a new agreement is an entirely normal shape for one to have.

What it means for the agreement itself

The agreement Tenarize generates is an assured periodic tenancy, and there is deliberately no fixed-term or length field anywhere in the product. That is not a simplification — it reflects that the field has nothing to hold.

Where a landlord is importing a tenancy that started before May 2026, it comes in as what it is now rather than what it was called when it began. There is no legacy fixed-term state to preserve, because the law did not preserve one.

The generated agreement is not solicitor-reviewed, and it carries a permanent disclaimer saying so. It is written as original prose against the applicable regulations for topic coverage, and kept current with English law as it changes — which is not the same thing as advice about your circumstances.

Where to check this yourself

• Renters' Rights Act: an overview for landlords — GOV.UK's summary of what changed on 1 May 2026
• Renting out a property — the wider set of duties a landlord in England has
• The Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet 2026 — the document you now give a tenant before the tenancy is agreed

If you are unsure how any of this applies to a tenancy you already have, Shelter and Citizens Advice are both free and independent.

If you would rather not adapt a template that predates the Act, Tenarize builds the agreement for each tenancy rather than handing you a blank one. The mandatory clauses and the disclaimer are always present; the optional clauses you toggle on or off; a few render conditionally from what you have already configured, so the late payment wording matches the interest rate you set, or says plainly that none applies. Anything the clauses do not cover goes in a free-text addendum. It is then e-signed, recording who signed and when, and the clause selections are stored against that signature request — so what was sent survives the template being updated later.

It is £15 a month for one to five properties, with the first month free. The help centre is free to read either way.