What A Tenant Should Check Before Signing A Tenancy Agreement

With the nation fearing a property crash, and with mortgage rates increasing, renting has never been so popular. That means more and more tenants are open to attack, to walk blindly into tenancy agreements that won’t always serve their best interest. Below is a checklist of things a tenant should check before agreeing to any tenancy agreement. The list is subjective, and I’m sure there are other requirements, you as a tenant, may want to satisfy your personal satisfaction. However, the list is pretty solid and covers a broad area which should keep the average tenant at ease (providing the majority of the boxes are ticked). If you can think of anything else, please let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

Deposit Protection Scheme

By law the landlord should participate with the scheme. Any landlord that doesn’t comply with the most basic of rules like this should trigger alarm bells. The DPS is for your own protection.

Gas safety certificate

Again, by law this required to be renewed on an annual basis. A Corgi registered gasman needs to provide a certificate proving that the necessary safety checks have been performed, with all appliances passing the test to a satisfactory level.

Content Insurance

Enquire whether the rent covers content insurance or whether you, as the tenant, are responsible for your own personal belongings in case of a fire. Most landlords won’t cover content, but it’s best to find out. Obviously it’s all the better for you if your landlord is paying for your content insurance.

Bills, bills, bills- who’s responsible?

Ensure that the tenancy agreement stipulates who is responsible for all bills - not just the obvious ones like gas and electricity, but, for example, ground rent if the owner is a leaseholder, and council tax. If you get your costs wrong, you could be paying a lot more than you initially anticipated.

Emergency maintenance

Emergency maintenance issues (e.g. heating not working) - what is the procedure for getting these attended to? Ideally, this should also be mentioned in the contract. A lot of landlords will leave you in cold for weeks before attempting to provide any form of help. Of course, by law, landlords are responsible for any electricity, heating and gas problems and should provide assistance immediately. However, any other grey areas that may need maintenance should have a timescale.

Maintenance Fees

Who is responsible for maintenance fees? Usually, the landlord will be held responsible for covering the cost of uncontrollable faults i.e the plumbing and heating. But what about everything else? Who will need to cough up if the wallpaper starts to unpeel?

Right Of Entry

Find out under what circumstances the landlord can enter the property. In general, a landlord needs to provide 24 hours notice to the tenant before being able to enter the property. Even then, the tenant needs allow permission. However, it’s always best to check. You don’t want your landlord to walk in while you have his wife bent over the kitchen sink, do you?

Financial Arrangements

Kind of a no-brainer, but make sure arrangements for paying the rent are clearly and strictly highlighted in the agreement. Of course, this is probably the main issue on both the tenant’s and landlord’s mind. But it’s amazing how many tenant/landlord relationships turn sour over payment issues.

Strictly no access

Be aware of what you are actually paying for. Some landlords have the right to only grant you access to specific parts of the house to the tenant. For example, the tenancy agreement could stipulate that you can rent the entire house, besides from the master bedroom.

Parking Space

Find out what the arrangement is for parking spaces. Does the property come with allocated parking spaces? Is a residents permit required- would you be eligible for one? If so, how much will it cost?

Pets

What’s the situation with pets? One of my current tenant’s didn’t have a pet when she moved in, but adopted a random puppy half way through her tenancy agreement. Fortunately for her, I’m one nice son-of-a-bitch, so I granted her the rights to provide shelter to the mutt, so it was all cool. What’s your rights on the whole pet thing? Maybe you’ll unexpectedly have to provide shelter to an iguana or something.

Household Appliances

Make sure every appliance that comes with the property actually works, especially any major appliances that uses hot water and gas. Check if the toilet flash works properly and if hot water pours from the taps.

Furnishing

Will the property be furnished or unfurnished? Remember, what you see during a viewing might not necessarily be what you’ll be getting when you move in. It’s not uncommon for landlords to stage their properties so it looks more appealing to potential tenants. Bear in mind that if the property isn’t furnished, you may have to dig deep and splash out on furnishing.

Landlord’s personal storage

Find out if the Landlord is storing any of his or her personal belongings in the property. I know in one of my properties I have some hardwood flooring tucked away in the shed. I’ve kept it out of the way, but I’ve informed my tenant about its existence, just in case she suddenly gets eBay fever!!

Working doors and windows

Investigate whether all the doors and windows close properly and have seals that keep the rain out. Remember, all your valuables will be stored in this place, so security should be a big concern of yours.

Mobile phone signal

This may not seem important to anyone else, but as a tenant, this would play a major factor on my checklist. Find out if you can get signal on your mobile phone in the property. I don’t know about anyone else, but my phone is my life, without it is like…God, I don’t even want to think about it, or conjure up a clever metaphor, because I know my metaphor wouldn’t even be able to articulate the tragic affair my life would be without a working mobile phone.

Written agreement

Ideally, all the issues mentioned above (or the rules that suit you and the landlord best) should be written in the tenancy agreement, just so there is no confusion. It’s amazing how confusing landlord Vs tenant debates can get just because no one could be bothered to finalise the details on paper.

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online estate agent wrote, on Apr 30th, 2008

	Very interesting post
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