And the things that can go wrong if you don’t!
All tenancies should have a tenancy agreement. Why?
- You might otherwise get arguments about what was agreed
- You can include clauses which protect your position, and
- If you don’t have one you won’t be able to use the special ‘accelerated procedure’
But why do YOU need to know about them? How will it help you?
Here are a few problems that might arise through ignorance
If you do not give an address for the landlord in the tenancy agreement, this will put you in breach of section 48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 and the tenant will have the right to withhold their rent
If the tenancy agreement provides for rent to be paid in large lump sums, for example quarterly or yearly, this may result in your needing to give three month or six month notice to tenants under section 21, if the tenancy is not worded correctly
If you do not include the proper wording, your clause forbidding pets may be invalid
And here a a few things you might not know:
- You can require tenants to pay your inventory clerks’ fee – so long as the cost is split equally with you (ie you pay checkin and the tenants pay checkout)
- A tenancy agreement clause providing for your tenant to give two months notice if he wishes to leave at the end of the fixed term will be invalid
- You can have a valid assured shorthold tenancy, even if the fixed term is less than six months
If you want to know more, my audiobook on tenancy agreements will be launching soon.
This has loads of information and covers all the points mentioned above in greater detail, plus sections on unfair terms in tenancy agreements (and how to avoid them), inventories, tenancy deposits, guarantees, assignment and subletting, how to deal with student lets and lets to tenants with pets, and lots more.
We will have a special launch offer planned, so to make sure you don’t miss out, sign up to the special mailing list now. You will find the sign up page >> here.
As a bonus, after you have signed up, you will be able to download my speical quick guide to preparing a tenancy agreement.
This is an 11 page pdf which will give you the essentials you need to know when signing up new tenants. >> Click here.
I have found that people often copy other people’s agreements and pass them down. The best example of this was a tenancy agreement I saw once that prohibited the playing of a pianola so you can only guess how old the original one must have been.
Somewhere out there will be a tenancy agreement which prohibits the performance of the Galliard haha