Tenancy agreement

mruddy

Hi

I was wondering if anyone would know where to get a tenancy agreement? We are renting our apartment and was going to go through an EA but we have been approached by a neighbour who's nephew is looking to rent it. He seems very level headed and has his family around him who are very decent people. However, now we are not going to go through the EA as it costs £300+ VAT but now we need to get a good tenancy agreement just to be on the safe side. any ideas would be greatly welcomed.

kellyward_2

Hello mruddy,

I have just donw a search on Google for you and various websites come up with these. I did find a site which you can buy a tenancy agreement for £5 (rla.org.uk) if you're not a member of the site.

Every tenancy agreement I have ever signed has been exactly the same.

Hope this helps you

mruddy

Thanks, i had searched those as well but as it is my first time i am not sure if everything is covered. we are getting an let to buy mortgage and the broker we were with has offered to give us one for nothing, he says he uses it for the houses he rents and has run it past a solicitor who says it is very detailed so hope this works.

kellyward_2

That would be your best bet, especially if he uses them for his own houses (sure he's got even the kitchen sink covered!) excuse the bad pun but it's Monday :-D

Jowo_2

I hope you are going to perform full tenant screening, following receipt of a full tenancy application form - credit check, previous landlord references, current employee reference, photo ID, payslips/bank statements, and so forth. If the family is decent, they won't mind offering to be a guarantor.

This screening filters out apparently level headed and decent people who are then revealed to have CCJs, previous evictions, income too low to support the rent, etc.

And that you produce a thorough inventory/schedule of condition that is signed by the tenant otherwise you will struggle to make legitimate deductions when a tenant damages the property.

Are you aware of EPCs, gas safety certificate requirements, the tenancy deposit schemes?

The only reason I bring up the following is that this type of knowledge and documentation is what a good EA is skilled at to prevent handing over a key to a dodgy tenant and preventing the landlord from getting hit with penalties from not fulfilling their statutory obligations.

You may have already covered all this stuff but its important to be aware of landlord's responsibilities and weeding out duff tenants (who are often keen to avoid the EA route in case their histories are uncovered and they prefer to target novice landlords).

Jomo

WH Smiths?

mruddy

Hey,

The reason the person contacted us is because we are friendly with his aunt who is our neighour, he is interested in buying a property in 2 years and because we are only renting for 2 years and he has family near then he was very interested in our apartment. Now that you have mentioned all the screening we need to do i am not sure what to do now. maybe if we just asked him for bank statements and asked for a guarantor. we have an epc done as we were trying to sell the property and the property is oil heating. i am very confused now

Geenie

mruddy wrote: »

Hey,

The reason the person contacted us is because we are friendly with his aunt who is our neighour, he is interested in buying a property in 2 years and because we are only renting for 2 years and he has family near then he was very interested in our apartment. Now that you have mentioned all the screening we need to do i am not sure what to do now. maybe if we just asked him for bank statements and asked for a guarantor. we have an epc done as we were trying to sell the property and the property is oil heating. i am very confused now

I don't think people are trying to confuse you, but offering advice and a warning, as there have been threads on here about so called friends, or relatives turning out to be tenants from hell once in situ.

The advice is don't scrimp on anything, just because you know the aunty or whoever. Do all the checks, take a deposit and secure it within 14 days. Because you have saved £300 not using an LA, you can quite easily spend £60 or so to join a Landlord association. This will give you free access to all the documents you need like AST's, and information you need to proceed in a correct and legal manner, thus reduce any future problems that could arise.

Jowo_2

mruddy wrote: »

maybe if we just asked him for bank statements and asked for a guarantor. we have an epc done as we were trying to sell the property and the property is oil heating. i am very confused now

Well, no need for the gas safety cert if there is no gas boiler or gas appliances, then.

But partial screening is as good as using half a condom.

A reliable tenant will have nothing to fear at the rather conventional practice of undertaking a few checks which is completely normal. You can use a third party to do the legwork - it will only cost the tenant about £30-45, a lot less than EAs charge to do this.

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/tenant_screening.htm

http://www.tenantverify.co.uk/

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/successful_landlording.htm

Same with the inventory - if you don't feel confident, get an independent one done.

A good estate agent doesn't charge fees simply to spend a couple of minutes filling in a few fields in a Tenancy agreement anyhow (a rogue one will, however), however many times that posters whinge on the forum about unfair letting agent charges.

theartfullodger

And it ain't just the above... for example if you have an entirely correct AST tenancy, gas saftey etc, APC but have (say) issued the Section 21 notice before giving the tenancy deposit info etc to the tenant then the S211 notice is invalid & you can't get 'em out...

Be careful!!

Know about being fined 3xdeposit if you don't handle deposit right???

Cheers!

Lodger

PS Only go into renting if you can financially & emotionally handle the "tenant from hell" who appeared wonderful, only paid 1st month, then takes 9 months to get out whilst trashing the place & you have no income & are shelling out legal fees.. An he then 'phone @ 23:10 on Sunday evening to say "Toilet leaks" you say "well some rent would be nice, but how long has it been leaking dear sir??" and he says "erf, dunno, 3 or 4 weeks" and you then find you must repair things even though he ain't paying you...

clutton_2

Every tenancy agreement I have ever signed has been exactly the same


there is no such thing as a standard tenancy agrement - i have seen one half a page long and i have seen one 50 pages long

OP sounds as if they have no clue what they are doing - forgive my bluntness - but - please use an agent - bite the bullet pay them a fee and be sure these folks are checked out properly. Clever tenants can smell amateur landlords at 5 miles.....

the first time you will know when/if your AST is rubbish is when you are in court trying to get a tenant out and the judge throws out your application for possession, ...... and you have to start all over for another £150 court fees and another 3-4 months wait.....

Use the agent, thenJoin national landlords association and read up on your legal responsibilities - 50+ Acts of parliment to comply with