The tenancy trail

Answer:

The tenancy will be an Assured Tenancy.

It will not be an Assured Shorthold tenancy.

The main consequence of this is that the landlord will not be able to use section 21 to evict the tenants.  So the tenants will have long-term security of tenure, unless one of the grounds in Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 applies (although unless this is a mandatory ground the landlord is still not guaranteed a possession order if they go to court).

Most pre 27/2/1997 assured tenancies were created by mistake due to the landlord’s ignorance of the rules.

Note that the information on Landlord Law is primarily about assured shorthold tenancies, as so few tenancies in the private sector are assured tenancies.