Tenancy Agreements

Kettering Borough Council offer 12 month introductory tenancies to all new, first time tenants.

The purpose of the introductory tenancy is to give you time to settle in with a trial period. Your tenancy agreement shows the date that your introductory tenancy begins and ends. You will automatically become a fixed term tenant after 12 months as long as we have not applied to the courts for a possession order.

Your rights and responsibilities as an introductory tenant

By law, during your introductory tenancy, you do not have all of the rights of a fixed term or secure tenant but you do have all of the responsibilities. As an introductory tenant you must show us that you are responsible enough to keep your home by:

• Paying your rent and any service charges on time
• Not behaving anti-socially in your property
• Looking after your home and garden to an acceptable standard

What you may not do as an introductory tenant

Introductory tenants may not;

• Exchange your home
• Transfer the tenancy (unless ordered to do so by a court)
• Exercise the Right to Buy (although the 12 months may count towards your discount later)
• Carry out improvements to the property (although small improvements may be allowed by your Neighbourhood Manager)

Monitoring your introductory tenancy

Your Neighbourhood Manager will visit you around two weeks after you move in and every three months thereafter. They will check how you are getting on and if necessary, offer advice and support on how to successfully manage your tenancy.

If you have managed the majority of your introductory tenancy in a satisfactory manner with only one or two areas of concern, the introductory tenancy may be extended for a further 6 months.

If you break the terms

If you break any of the terms in your tenancy contract, your Neighbourhood Manager will get in touch with you and tell you what you need to do. If you don’t do what we ask you to do and the problem carries on, we will serve you with a Notice of Termination. This means that, after 28 days, we will go to court to ask for possession of your home.

Your right to a review

You will have the right to ask for a review of our decision. You can do this by filling in the review form enclosed with your notice. You should put down the reasons why you think your tenancy should not be brought to an end. A date will then be set for the review to take place.

A review panel will be responsible for looking again at the decision to end your tenancy. The panel is made up of two senior council officers. Neither of them will have been involved in the original decision to serve a notice.

The panel will discuss your case and you will have the opportunity to state why you think your tenancy should not end. You may bring a friend or advisor to the review meeting with you and they may speak on your behalf.  

If you do not ask, in writing, for a review of our decision within 14 days, we will automatically ask the court for possession of your home.

Decision of the review panel

We will tell you the review panel’s decision within 5 days of the review hearing. We will tell you before the date on the notice when we can apply to court for possession of your home.

If the review panel changes the decision and agrees that your tenancy should not end, we will not apply to the court for possession of your home.  Your Introductory Tenancy will continue for the rest of the 12 month trial period.

If the review panel’s decision agrees with the decision to end your tenancy, we will carry on with the notice of termination and apply to court for immediate possession of your home. Once you have reached this stage the Judge in court will give us an order for possession of your home that will result in you being evicted.