Legal Documents and Property Rental Agreements
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In the UK, you are legally required to sign property rental agreements with your tenant when renting property for residential purposes. This law applies regardless of how you manage your property portfolio, and was designed for the protection of both the landlord and the tenant.
If you outsource your property management, your property rental agreements, and their preparation, will usually be provided by the property management company at a cost (usually between 50 and 100UKP per instance). However, smaller portfolios are often property-managed by the individual investor and therefore a solicitor is engaged to prepare the contracts.
The alternative for those self-managing their portfolio is to obtain a legal documents pack that you can re-use for each property that you rent. These legal templates can prove invaluable, saving you time and money.
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We have several properties that are currently rented using Tenancy Contract Kits that we obtained for this very purpose.
There are several contracts in the Property Rental Agreements Legal Package that we use. Using these template contracts has made the job of renting our properties much easier and improved our capability to manage these properties by ourselves.
The package covers:
- fixed or variable term occupation
- commercial and residential
- inventory checks
- and many more related agreements
We are very happy with these property rental documents because they are macro-driven word documents, which are extremely flexible, and easy to fill in. They are also fully reusable. (The same applies to the Excel based Inventory Check etc...)
If you need to amend any clauses in the contract, be careful though. You may invalidate the property rental agreement. To prevent this from happening, you should ask a solicitor for the correct phrasing of the modification.
Handling Tenancy Contracts & Maintenance Documents
Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement
Whenever you are looking at a rental investment ensure that you have your Property Rental Agreements signed at the outset of the rental. You have no protection in law if you do not!
Inventory
In addition, ensure that you have signed Inventory documents. These must list every fixture and fitting in your rental property, and their condition.
Having these legal documents in place will save you no end of heartache and aggravation at the end of the tenancy.
Tenancy Deposits
Many Landlords used to maintain a separate account for tenant deposits. However, since the current Government announced strict legislation concerning the protection of tenant deposits, it is now a legal requirement to either place the money in a custodial account, or guarantee it with an insurance policy.
Whichever method you select, you need to should ensure that your tenancy contracts stipulate that you will be the benefactor of any interest accrued on the deposit money. If you dont, then the tenant will automatically receive any interest money not swallowed up by administration charges levied by the custodians of the Deposit Protection Scheme you have joined.More information concerning all aspects of this legislation can be found at DirectGov.
Utilities
You need to obtain annual certificates from certified professionals for any Gas and Electrical Appliances that you supply to the property.
In the case of Gas, this is a straightforward check of the Gas supply lines/boiler and is relatively quick to perform. It’s a similar process for your electricity check.
Important:
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