Here things can sound a bit technical but I’ll do my best to make it as clear as I can. Nevertheless – with money like this changing hands – you owe it to yourself to learn some quite specific things. Landlord-tenant law is immense, but assured shorthold tenancies only utilise a small core of this existing legislation. You only need to know about the parts of them that affect you and how you’ll live. Those of you with more appetite for detail can find unlimited browsing resources online.So let’s start with the absolute basics. And let’s keep things simple. Almost every tenancy now available to you will be one type or another of assured shorthold tenancy. They are the current currency that keeps investment pouring into the rental market.
What Is A Lease?
It’s a contract. Pure and simple. It can be anything from four pages long to 30 plus pages of close typed script in size 8 font. However impenetrable, always insist on taking the time to read your lease. Once you’ve signed it, you’re bound by it. And by all those itty bitty things hidden in sub clause 2a) iv – or whatever. If you don’t want to sign it, there’s no compulsion.
So read leases and make decisions about what you want or don’t. You are half of this contract – in fact you’re the one with the money everyone wants – so learn how to make a deal. Good lettings/rentals are ‘win win’ situations, where both sides get a degree of what they want from contracts.
Private Landlords
The majority of private landlords buy leases from legal suppliers like Oyez. They are cheap, simple to understand, comply with fair contract
terms and legally enforceable. They don’t contain any hidden clauses and everything in them complies with the terms of the relevant housing legislation. They rarely included clauses allowing non-negotiable rent increases. We use them because our tenants find them straightforward and so do we.
Agents
The majority of agents have their own leases drawn up by in-house legal services. Many have inbuilt fees, which can be demanded and many incorporate annual rent increases, which are not negotiable if signed by tenants. Ask for time to read through these leases – however long they are – and insist that anything you don’t understand is explained. Because agencies rely on volume with many properties, many tenants and of course lots of itsy bitsy charges that no one mentions out loud, make it your job to read what you’re agreeing to
before you sign any lease.
But I Don’t Have A Lease!
Although it’s unwise, some landlords still let out property without paperwork. However by handing over money each week/month, a contract is still created – paperwork or not. So you do have a lease. It’s an unwritten lease. And, so long as you moved in after 1997 it’s almost without exception an assured shorthold lease. With that contract, however informal and unclear, come some rights for tenants (landlords too).
You are legally entitled to certain information in writing: start dates, the amount of rent payable and when to pay it. However, like everything else to do with rentals, some landlords comply with nothing. Nevertheless, you’re still legally entitled to that six months’ initial security, just like all other similar tenants. Maybe your landlord simply doesn’t know – or doesn’t want to know that – but that’s the legal position. With or without words a contract with rights on both sides exists.
All these exceptions and much more are in Appendix A of the government’s essential booklet that I keep mentioning: Assured and Assured Shorthold Tenancies: A guide for tenants – product code 97 HC 228C. Call 0870 1226 236 – they’re free, a mere phone call away. They’re also an absolute godsend to tenants trying to deal with landlords/agents who refuse to believe that you have a point to make that’s valid. So get one of these booklets. And wield it wherever necessary when management is being unreasonable.