Rent due when tenant dies?

[Peppermint]

Hello,

My Grandmother who died recently was a private tenant in a property with a tenancy of over 20 years, therefore presumably with a protected tenancy agreement?

Would the landlord only be able to charge rent up to the date of her death or until the keys were handed over by relatives two months later once the clearance had taken place?

I am unsure if this is written in law or whether we need to see the original tenancy agreement which we do not have a copy of. We are assuming the agreement is between the landlord and the tenant - not the relatives, so if she is dead who is liable to pay the rent?

[stanleyman]

It would normally come out of her estate if she left anything, no one else is responsible.

[themas]

Was she paying the rent herself, or did she get Housing Benefit from the local council? If the latter, they use whatever rules apply under the legislation to determine the date the benefit stops.

So far as the landlord is concerned, if the tenancy was just in your grandmother's name no-one else is liable for the rent, but if she left any money then any rent due is a liability of her estate and should be paid up to the date the keys were handed over, because the landlord did not have possession of the property until then so could not re-let it.