When a tenant stays on after the lease ends

What the Rental Housing Act says when a tenant stays on after a residential lease expires, and how a landlord keeps invoicing rent month by month.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 5 min read · For Real estate businesses in South Africa

The lease on the two-bedroom flat ended at the end of February. Nobody signed a renewal, the tenant never gave notice, and on the first of March the rent arrived in the bank as usual. Six months later the landlord wants to increase the rent, or sell the flat, and suddenly everyone is asking what agreement, if any, is in force.

This happens all the time in South African residential letting. Renewals slip through the cracks, tenants are happy where they are, and landlords are happy to keep receiving rent. The Rental Housing Act has a clear answer to what the relationship becomes. The practical questions are how to make sure both sides understand it, and how to keep the invoices and the books in step.

The lease does not simply vanish

Under section 5(5) of the Rental Housing Act, 1999, a tenant who stays on after the lease expires, with the landowner's express or tacit consent, is deemed to be on a periodic lease on the same terms, unless a new written lease is signed. Either party may end that periodic lease on at least one month's written notice.

Three parts of that rule matter in practice:

• Consent can be tacit, not only express. A landlord who does not want the tenant to stay should say so in writing, rather than quietly banking the rent each month and hoping the question never arises.
• The terms carry over. The rent, the deposit arrangement, the house rules and the other charges in the expired lease continue to govern the relationship.
• The fixed term is gone. What remains runs month to month, and either side can end it with one month's written notice.

The full wording of section 5, including the rules on what a lease must contain and what happens on expiry, is on Acts Online's page for the Rental Housing Act.

What "the same terms" covers

Section 5(6) of the Act lists what a written residential lease must contain: the names and addresses of the tenant and landowner, a description of the dwelling, the rent and any reasonable escalation, the payment frequency if rent is not monthly, the amount of any deposit, and the lease period or the notice period for termination. Section 5(6)(h) adds that the lease must state the amount of any other charges payable in addition to the rent, and those charges must be identified in the lease.

So when a lease rolls into a periodic one, the landlord should be able to point to the expired document for each charge it keeps billing: the rent itself, and any separately identified charges such as water or parking. If a charge is not in the lease, carrying it over is on shaky ground.

Escalation needs care. The periodic lease is on the same terms, but whether an escalation clause in the expired lease can be applied again on a new anniversary depends on how the clause was written. Before increasing the rent of a tenant on a periodic lease, read the clause closely, give the tenant written notice, and take advice if it is unclear. Often the cleaner route is a new lease.

When to put a new lease in front of the tenant

Section 5(1) of the Act requires the landowner to reduce the lease with the tenant to writing, and section 5(3) makes the lease enforceable in a Tribunal or a competent court. A periodic lease that rests on an expired document is enforceable, but it is not ideal. A new written lease is the better choice when:

• the rent is going to change;
• the landlord wants a new fixed period, for example because the flat may be sold;
• the original lease has gaps, such as charges that were never written into it;
• the tenant has changed, for instance a partner who moved in.

Write the new lease with the requirements of section 5(6) in mind; residential lease requirements goes through each one.

Keeping the rent invoiced while the lease rolls on

The legal position is only half the job. The other half is making sure the rent is invoiced and followed up every month without anyone remembering to do it.

There is a current limitation to plan around in Achekam. A business cannot set up a recurring invoice for a customer; repeating invoices exist only as retainers created from a signed engagement letter. So a landlord or letting agency bills rent month by month.

The monthly routine is straightforward:

1. At the start of each month, create the rent invoice for each tenant as a draft. Drafts can be changed or deleted, so a wrong amount costs nothing at this stage.
2. Check each draft against the lease, or against the expired lease for a tenant on a periodic arrangement: the rent, plus only the charges the lease identifies.
3. Issue the invoices. Issuing takes the next number in the sequence and posts the invoice to the ledger as debtors, sales and output VAT. Default payment terms are 30 days, so a landlord whose leases say rent is due on the first should set the terms to match.
4. Ask your accountant how the rent should be treated for VAT before the first invoice goes out, and set the invoice up the same way every month.

Keep a short list of tenants on periodic leases, with the date each original lease expired. When the rent changes under a new lease, update the list.

Following up arrears without a phone call every week

Credit control is on for new workspaces. Once a day it e-mails overdue reminders and a monthly statement to customers with a balance, and records whether each e-mail went out. By default, reminders go at 7, 14 and 30 days overdue with the invoice PDF attached; the e-mail settings need to be working. It never charges anyone, so it nudges a tenant rather than collecting from them.

For a tenant on a periodic lease, a run of reminders is also an early warning. If the arrears build, the landlord may decide to give one month's written notice under section 5(5), and the record of each reminder sent is useful when explaining the history.

Arrears also squeeze an agency's own cash between bigger receipts; cash flow between registrations looks at that problem.

Pull a list today of every lease that has already passed its end date, and for each one decide: let it run as a periodic lease with a written note to the tenant, or send a new lease to sign.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.