Often the leases that assured shorthold tenants are offered come from standard legal stationers. These are usually obvious, with the name of the legal stationers clearly stated, generally on the back page. Alternatively, you could be presented with a standard lease, prepared by your agent’s lawyers – these too will usually be titled. The third alternative is a specific lease on several typed pages, drawn up by a solicitor engaged by the landlord. Often these too will have the name of the firm somewhere obvious at the beginning or the end. Your lease is likely to have a title something like this:

Tenancy agreement for letting a (furnished/unfurnished) dwelling house on an assured shorthold tenancy under Part 1 of the Housing Act 1988.

Standard terms

Here is a little exploration of some (but by no means all) of the clauses you may find to give a general feel for what some unfamiliar phrases mean. I have also included details of rent increase mechanisms where they often overlap with leases.

• ‘A term certain of...’ is normally found on a fixed term tenancy. The landlord or agent will fill in here six months, or nine months, whatever has been decided. This then is usually the length of your fixed term, where you enjoy the greatest security.

Unless you find something specific stating otherwise on your lease, the rent agreed will usually remain for the duration of the fixed term.

• Break clauses, giving either party a right to terminate before the fixed term ends, should be specifically written into leases with dates.
• Rent reviews at (say) six-monthly or yearly intervals can be included in the lease. If they have not been written into the lease, no specific provision has been made for them. Wording might therefore simply be ‘the landlord lets, and the tenant takes the property for the term, (x) at the rent (x).’
• Rents can be referred to as weekly, monthly or pcm. AST leases usually state when money should be received, each rent period, e.g. each Monday, or every four weeks, or perhaps on the 25th of each calendar month.
• If rent increases can legitimately be automatically raised, some note of when, and how and when rent will be reviewed must be written into your lease.
• Landlords/agents wanting to increase rents during fixed terms must have their tenant’s agreement. If the tenant disagrees, the landlord will have to wait until the fixed term ends to begin legal processes for a rent increase.
• At the end of fixed terms landlords are perfectly entitled to propose rent increases – it’s up to you whether or not you accept them or decide to move on.

References to the property include reference to any part or parts of the property, furniture, fixtures, etc usually incorporates tenant liability for taking care not to damage the property itself by design (banging those nails into walls!) or neglect, say by not notifying management about the necessity for repairs which damage the building (e.g. leaking pipes) and everything that comes with the property, including everything incorporated on the inventory/building schedule.

Explaining the terms

Some terms are obvious, they cover rent payments, accepting responsibility for gas, electricity, water and sewerage charges, and usually commit you to liability for local authority taxes.

• Tenants will often see terms like, yield up the property at the end of the tenancy, which means, simply, leave and return all keys to the landlord/agent.
• Some leases have a clause which insists that tenants do nothing which vitiates insurance. This means to make invalid, or ineffectual, a landlord’s insurance. This might mean bringing in paraffin or other portable heaters, which are prohibited by your landlord’s insurers, or messing about with the electrical supply and, say, causing a fire. It could also mean ensuring that the building is kept secure (i.e. locked). These clauses are not always specific, in fact they are meant to be quite wide, to offer some security for the landlord’s broad based and considerable investment. You are required as tenants to treat the property with respect and are also expected to look after things like security. Use your common sense and treat the place with as much care as you’d treat your own things and you won’t go too far wrong.
• Make good pay for or repair or replace places a responsibility upon tenants to return the property and contents in the same operational and decorative condition provided when you moved in. Usually a statement that reasonable wear and tear are excepted appears, meaning that landlords can’t charge for routine maintenance (like replacing old carpets or freshening up decorations which have deteriorated not through abuse, but simply by being in use). In effect, tenants have already compensated the landlord for wear and tear by paying their rent.

Typical terms

Some leases specifically instruct tenants to return all furniture to the positions they were in on acceptance of the property. There is sometimes a very troublesome lease requirement to wash all linens ‘soiled during the tenancy’. It’s been deleted from many legal service leases because of unforeseen problems. Where tenants find this they should apply common sense yet again. If you feel it necessary to clean the curtains because you smoke like a chimney, don’t put your landlord’s expensive drapes through the launderette! Check what is being required, use your common sense or ask if you’re confused.

• No pets is a very typical restriction. This does include hamsters as well as wolfhounds.
• Commonly there will be specific lease obligations, for example: not sublet without landlord/agent consent, which means don’t move someone else in to help pay part of the rent without permission first.
• Assign, means not to move out and give the property to anyone else; or receive paying guests, without the landlord’s specific written prior consent (which means before you do it, not afterwards when the landlord/agent finds out).
• Your use of any rented housing is usually confined specifically to normal residential use. You cannot then carry out any business without prior written consent.
• Permit the landlord or the landlord’s agents (which can mean the lettings agent, or the landlord’s employees for example) to enter the property to view the condition is usually accompanied by the condition of at reasonable hours. The landlord would usually be expected to give 24 hours’ written notice of this date and time.
• To enter in case of emergency, or reserves right of entry for emergencies, would reasonably allow a landlord to enter without necessarily being obliged to give notice, if for example there was a serious problem which couldn’t wait 24 hours, like a burst pipe. This does not of course cover straightening the curtains, as mentioned previously.

When you’ve given notice that you intend leaving

Very commonly the lease will contain a clause which permits the landlord or their agents to enter and view the property with prospective tenants. This is usually restricted to at reasonable hours, within the last 28 days of the tenancy. As mentioned earlier this does not include turning up unannounced, let alone barging straight in without knocking.

Rent issues

Can my rent be raised?

Ideally, these issues should have been thrashed out before you signed your contract. However it is really quite rare that tenants ask what rent increases are likely to apply in the future. Perhaps they imagine that if they ask, it will encourage the landlord to start thinking about it too!

Although it isn’t particularly good business to begin increasing rent more than once a year, if the management do, and the first fixed term of your tenancy have elapsed, in reality you have the same recurring problem that applies to all the terms of these tenancies. If you challenge it, your landlord still enjoys their guaranteed right of possession with two months’ notice.

For many tenants this is therefore theoretical rather than practical information, providing an overview of a few common scenarios. However rents are not house prices – they are fairly stable right now. Expect modest rent increases to occur, but don’t accept wild hikes every few months – if they occur, at least look around for a more reasonably priced unit. Keep your eye on the market and always have some idea how much the going rate is locally for property like your own. And don’t be afraid to point this out to an overoptimistic landlord/agent. As I said earlier, learn some negotiating skills. Many landlords might suggest a hefty rise, then back off if they think a good tenant will move on.

Rent increases in fixed term tenancies

Usually the agreement will state that the rent will be fixed for the length of ‘the fix’ i.e. six, nine or 12 months. It may however ‘fix’ the rent for six months and then say it will be reviewed at certain intervals. If it does say this, then the rent can go up. If you don’t want to agree to pay higher rent in the future, don’t sign a lease that commits you to it in advance.

If the landlord or agent wants to increase rent by more than it states in the lease at the end of any fixed term, it becomes your choice to either pay an increased rent or give notice and find somewhere cheaper. Do remember that, as usual, if you decline you are unlikely to have your lease extended.

If you have a fixed term and a lease which does not mention rent increases, your rent can only be raised during the fixed term if you agree. If you disagree the landlord has to wait until the end of whatever length ‘fix’ was on the lease before he can either legally propose a rent increase or act to get the building back.

Your landlord may not propose this method of increase however. Some landlords and agents offer a whole new lease, new fixed term, and a new rent level, every six months. These you must either accept, or decline, then move on, because they are effectively whole new tenancies every time. By offering a whole new secure period, the landlord/agent sometimes feels a rent hike might just be acceptable.

Truthfully, being a tenant in today’s climate is tough. Sometimes ‘negotiations’ are the last things that management expects. It’s terribly hard to advise anyone how to make these very personal judgement calls about what’s fair, what’s reasonable. Tenants are invariably on the back foot because they have no meaningful rights once their fixed term has expired. So, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Knowing how costly and inconvenient moving is sometimes makes management push their luck. A new lease with six months more guaranteed security might be worth the little extra (especially when faced with the trawl and expense of a move), but don’t get fleeced and pay more than a property is worth.

Rent increases for contractual periodic tenancies

Your landlord should give you at least one month’s notice in writing of any proposed increases in rent, usually using a special form called Landlord’s Notice proposing a new rent under an Assured Periodic Tenancy of premises situated in England. If you receive one of these you have two choices. Either pay the increase, or explain that you cannot afford it. Then either negotiate a rent you can afford, or decide you would rather move. In which case, one or other party serves written notice to quit.

Rent increases when your lease has become a statutory periodic tenancy

This is once any fixed term has expired unless a new lease has been signed. Again, if your fixed term has expired and you and your landlord want to consider continuing the tenancy, they may want to increase your rent at some time (usually annually). This can be done by using the same form mentioned earlier. Again you have the same choices as previously, and further increases can arise each year the tenancy continues. Again landlords/agents should give you one month’s notice of any proposed increase, an opportunity to negotiate/ decline. And again, if agreement can’t be reached on a higher rent one or other party serves legal notice to quit.

Licences

Genuine licences are in reality much more flexible arrangements between parties than tenancies. If you have a licence all the terms need to be arranged between yourself and your landlord. Given their almost complete lack of security, landlords are able to ask for rent increases in whatever way is worked out between the parties. Licensees have no formal mechanism for redress. Simply, if the rent reaches a level which you feel is too high, your only genuine strategy is to look for a more reasonably priced unit.