Can a demand for arrears of rent be sent where a contracted out lease has expired and the tenant remains in occupation but remains in occupation while negotiating a lease pursuant to a tenancy at will? If so how best should this be framed to avoid an inference that a periodic tenancy has arisen?

The tenant’s status

It frequently happens that on expiry of a Business tenancy the tenant remains in occupation without a new agreement having been entered into. Where Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954) has been validly excluded by contract, this occupation will in the first instance be either as a tenant at will or as a ‘tenant at sufferance’. If the landlord gives consent to the occupation it can no longer be said that there is a ‘tenancy at sufferance’. For example, a notice asserting that occupation is as a tenant at will plainly amounts to such consent.

A Tenancy at Will is a precarious status. To bring it to an end does not require that notice be given