Often the leases that assured shorthold tenants are offered come from standard legal stationers. These are usually obvious, with the name of the legal stationers clearly stated, generally on the back page. Alternatively, you could be presented with a standard lease, prepared by your agent’s lawyers – these too will usually be titled. The third alternative is a specific lease on several typed pages, drawn up by a solicitor engaged by the landlord. Often these too will have the name of the firm somewhere obvious at the beginning or the end. Your lease is likely to have a title something like this:

Standard Terms

Here is a little exploration of some (but by no means all) of the clauses you may find to give a general feel for what some unfamiliar phrases mean. I have also included details of rent increase mechanisms where they often overlap with leases.

• ‘A term certain of...’ is normally found on a fixed term tenancy. The landlord or agent will fill in here six months, or nine months, whatever has been decided. This then is usually the length of your fixed term, where you enjoy the greatest security.

Unless you find something specific stating otherwise on your lease, the rent agreed will usually remain for the duration of the fixed term.

• Break clauses, giving either party a right to terminate before the fixed term ends, should be specifically written into leases with dates.
• Rent reviews at (say) six-monthly or yearly intervals can be included in the lease. If they have not been written into the lease, no specific provision has been made for them. Wording might therefore simply be ‘the landlord lets, and the tenant takes the property for the term, (x) at the rent (x).’
• Rents can be referred to as weekly, monthly or pcm. AST leases usually state when money should be received, each rent period, e.g. each Monday, or every four weeks, or perhaps on the 25th of each calendar month.
• If rent increases can legitimately be automatically raised, some note of when, and how and when rent will be reviewed must be written into your lease.
• Landlords/agents wanting to increase rents during fixed terms must have their tenant’s agreement. If the tenant disagrees, the landlord will have to wait until the fixed term ends to begin legal processes for a rent increase.
• At the end of fixed terms landlords are perfectly entitled to propose rent increases – it’s up to you whether or not you accept them or decide to move on.

References to the property include reference to any part or parts of the property, furniture, fixtures, etc usually incorporates tenant liability for taking care not to damage the property itself by design (banging those nails into walls!) or neglect, say by not notifying management about the necessity for repairs which damage the building (e.g. leaking pipes) and everything that comes with the property, including everything incorporated on the inventory/building schedule.

Explaining The Terms

• Tenants will often see terms like, yield up the property at the end of the tenancy, which means, simply, leave and return all keys to the landlord/agent.
• Some leases have a clause which insists that tenants do nothing which vitiates insurance. This means to make invalid, or ineffectual, a landlord’s insurance. This might mean bringing in paraffin or other portable heaters, which are prohibited by your landlord’s insurers, or messing about with the electrical supply and, say, causing a fire. It could also mean ensuring that the building is kept secure (i.e. locked). These clauses are not always specific, in fact they are meant to be quite wide, to offer some security for the landlord’s broad based and considerable investment. You are required as tenants to treat the property with respect and are also expected to look after things like security. Use your common sense and treat the place with as much care as you’d treat your own things and you won’t go too far wrong.
• Make good pay for or repair or replace places a responsibility upon tenants to return the property and contents in the same operational and decorative condition provided when you moved in. Usually a statement that reasonable wear and tear are excepted appears, meaning that landlords can’t charge for routine maintenance (like replacing old carpets or freshening up decorations which have deteriorated not through abuse, but simply by being in use). In effect, tenants have already compensated the landlord for wear and tear by paying their rent.