Q: I AM employed by a firm that does a lot of work for European companies and following the Brexit referendum the Director has informed the staff that there may be some laid off as a result.

I have only just renewed my tenancy for a further 12 months and am concerned that I will not be able to pay the rent if I am made redundant.

What are my options?

A: Firstly, there has been a lot of uncertainty following the resent vote and this probably is not helping with any decision making process that your Director may need to make.

Some financial markets appear to have taken a tumble, though until there is clearer guidelines on what the Government plan once article 50 is sanctioned I feel that companies can only consider contingency plans, of which laying people off just happened to be one of the possibilities.

If you as a tenant find oneself in an unfortunate position where you lose your job for example, there are some options which may be open to you.

Whilst in no particular order, you may have savings that will tide you over until you can source a new job.

You may be able to borrow the rent from a relative or your guarantor should you have one to once again tide you over until you can source fresh employment.

You may need to call on the local authority which in our case is Stroud District Council at Ebley Mill and apply for Housing benefit.

This is means tested and you may be entitled to the full amount of you rent or receive Housing Benefit top up.

Any benefit will only reflect your needs so for example should you have no children you would only be entitled to the one bedroom allowance irrespective of the fact that you may live in for example a three bedroom house.

Depending on the length of time with your current employer you may be entitled to some redundancy payment in the form of a lump sum which may tide you over.

Some tenants may have taken out some form of insurance protection to cover such events happening and once triggered you may find that rent for up to 12 months maybe automatically covered.

Though, please note that with any insurance policy it is important to both read and understand the policy terms to make sure that you are covered adequately.

The above all deal with ways of keeping you at the property. However we could also address assistance from the Landlord that may ease your burden.

Even though you may still have almost 12 months remaining on your current fixed term tenancy, should the Landlord agree to end the tenancy given your circumstances then this is totally acceptable.

We at Sawyers tend to take an approach that as long as the Landlord does not lose out financially, then we will look at ways of ending the tenancy once we have sourced fresh tenant(s) to remove any void periods.

There may be an administration fee or a small financial penalty, however not all Landlords will take this approach and some can legally hold you to the full term even though this may financially cripple you.

You could decide to do nothing and default on your rent.

Though this is not advisable as your Landlord will commence legal action against you to include both possession and action to recover the rent owed.

Any court action against you would typically include a county court judgement.

This would make it extremely difficult to arrange any future finance including any loans, mortgage application and any future Landlord is unlikely to want to enter into any fresh tenancy agreement with you making you portentously homeless given you previous record.

Please continue to send in your letting related questions to steven@sawyersestateagents.co.uk