Owning your own home

Feel for you mate. My landlord has just evicted us with 2 months notice despite Covid regulations. Deposit not protected, no gas safety certificates, has done negligible repairs and other dodginess I won't put in writing. Still, easier for us to move out rather than dealing with his chaotic landlording.

Hence I've done some research on this - hope it helps. Definitely investigate yourself as I'm no expert. Shelter and Citizen's Advice have all this info. Also I know it's shite having someone try to ride over you and your basic rights, but try to keep things peachy civil. Good for stress levels and any mediation/legal dealings if it comes to it.

• As others have said, how you give your notice to the landlord will be stated in the lease agreement. If not explicitly stated it's normally done in writing and delivered to the landlord's registered address. So no guarantee you gave valid notice with your email.
  
• Valid notice would have ended the tenancy in July. But you've clearly stayed past the July move out date. Technically both parties should have made a new tenancy agreement, but it sounds like things just carried on as before. Even if there's been no new written contract, if you're still paying the landlord rent and residing at the property, then you have entered into a new AST in the eyes of the law. This will be a rolling tenancy in which you have only to give 1 month's notice. But as it's an AST... well the landlord still owes you 3 or 6 months notice (Covid regs.) depending on when they issued a valid section 21 eviction notice to you
  
  

TL;DR - regardless of what the landlord says you still have an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST). You can exit with 1 month's notice, but landlord still needs to give you 3-6 months notice.

Edit: A bit more reading suggests it’s even simpler: by not handing back the keys you never ended the tenancy.

https://www.thetenantsvoice.co.uk/your_home/can-you-stay-in-a-rented-property-after-your-move-out-date/