Public Liability Insurance - Tenants obligation

amy104

I can see why a landlord might want this - say a tenant got hurt because of ill repair but why would my new AST agrrement state the tenant is responsible for arranging this?

BitterAndTwisted

If a tenant got hurt because of ill-repair they would be making a claim on their landlords insurance. This clause is probably in there because the person drawing up the AST doesn't know what public liability insurance is.

Unless the tenant is running a business open to the public there is no reason why either party should be obliged to have this sort of insurance.

Unless this is a commercial lease and not a residential one ....

amy104

Its residential.

My landlord is new to this (when we took up the tenancy it was managed by an agent).

The whole agreement has clauses I've not seen before. I'm starting to wonder if he's just copied it off the net.

One says the landlord can deduct from deposit at any time and we must make the deposit back up to its full amount. I thought with a protected deposit deductions were only made at the termination?

There is also one for liable for costs to landlord in connection with applications for consent or approval for any of the terms in the agreement. Does this mean he wants to charge us everytime we ask permision to do something say put up a picture?

Also why should I be liable for alarm call outs. What if the landlord or a repair man sets it off? Or its faulty?

[Deleted User]

I had a disaster of a tenancy agreement myself. I didn't look into it thoroughly at the time of originally taking the tenancy because I was in emergency accommodation and to be honest, I'd have signed for a cardboard box at the time.

It was like the landlord had copied legalese from various tenancy agreements (all very favourable to him and not to me, the tenant) into the tenancy agreement, many of which would probably have not held up if tested in court. But they were worrying and were referred to by the landlord when repair issues came up. He 'seemed' to think it was a perfectly ok tenancy agreement and kept telling me to go to the CAB and check my position lol. I did and they agreed with me lol. BUT if it had gone to court, there was no guarantee the Judge would have agreed, and lots of stress en route.

So when it came to time to sign for another term I purchased a WH Smith tenancy agreement pack from Amazon for £10. It was a balanced agreement (didn't particularly favour the tenant or the landlord) and asked my landlord to sign this.

He was suprisingly quite glad to. For some reason he seemed to find the cost of buying an official legally sound tenancy agreement prohibitive lol. It was annoying that I had to do this, but was worth it for the reduction of stress.

BitterAndTwisted

amy104 wrote: »

Its residential.

My landlord is new to this (when we took up the tenancy it was managed by an agent).

The whole agreement has clauses I've not seen before. I'm starting to wonder if he's just copied it off the net.

Of course he has. You can suggest a couple of things:

One: that he cribs the rental-agreement you originally signed with the letting-agent and just amend the dates etcetera.

Two: that he joins a landlords association. Then he can get a free and reliable AST plus the cost of joining said association can be offset against the rental-income for tax-purposes. Win/win.

What I would suggest very strongly indeed is that you do not sign the agreement in its present form.

If he was previously letting the property to you via an agent there is no particular reason why you should have to sign a new agreement. Why not just go on to a rolling periodic tenancy? Unless both parties prefer the security of a new fixed-term.

Guest101

Sounds like he wants you to float above the carpet, and dont even think of opening a window!!

Perhaps it's worth just talking to him and seeing if he'll remove the offending articles?

ashburnham

Tenant's Liability Insurance is common. Most leases will make the tenant responsible for certain damage and the landlord/letting agent is just ensuring that the tenant protects themselves against such damage.

As an example, a recent lease I read (from a reputable company) said that the tenant is responsible for any damage to the windows (even if it was not their fault).

Don't worry too much though as a lot of decent tenants contents insurance policies will include a tenants liability section within it. A tenant should be taking out the contents cover anyway to protect their own possession and if you chose the right poicy, it should also provide the liability cover you need within it.

amy104

Thanks all. Turns out the landlord just didn't know we already had one. I'm not sure whether the LA didn't give him a copy or whether he didn't understand about periodic tenancies and was just looking at the dates for the fixed term.