Shelf 4Before a key is cut
An assured shorthold tenancy is the only shelf in this building where the paperwork comes before the keys and not with them. Nothing is handed over until the following are complete and the copies are in the file, because a document served late is worth less than a document served on time, and some of them cannot be cured at all.
- Right to rent check on every adult occupier
- copy in the tenancy file
- The current government guide for tenants
- served, receipt noted
- Energy performance certificate
- served, valid at the start
- Gas safety record for the installation
- served, dated within the interval
- Electrical installation condition report
- served, dated within the interval
- Deposit protected and prescribed information served
- within the statutory period
- Schedule of condition, signed by both sides
- step five of this chain
A list of documents and the order they are served in. Nothing here is legal advice and nothing here is a charge.
TermWhat runs for the whole of the term
The term has a start date and an end date and the obligations sit on both sides of it for the whole of that span. Rent is payable on a stated day by standing order, which is used rather than cash because a bank record settles a question about a particular month without anybody having to remember it. Repairs that fall to the landlord are reported to the office and acknowledged in writing with a date, so that the clock on them starts somewhere that both sides can see.
Where the tenancy is of stock this company holds itself, the obligation is the company's own. Where the tenancy is of a property managed for an owner on a fee basis, the obligation remains the owner's and the office carries it out on their behalf under the management agreement. The distinction is written into the tenancy agreement at the start, because a tenant is entitled to know who they are actually contracting with.
VisitsInspections during the term
Inspections are on a stated interval written into the agreement rather than when somebody feels like it. Written notice goes out before each one with a date and a time band, and the visit is rearranged if that does not suit, because the right to inspect is not a right to arrive unannounced. The inspector looks at condition, damp, the alarms, the state of anything that was repaired since the last visit and the meter readings, and the report goes to both sides afterwards with the date on it whether or not anything was found.
Nothing is photographed inside an occupied room beyond what the report is about. A damp patch is photographed; the room it is in is not.
EndingEnding, renewing or rolling on
Three things can happen at the end of a fixed term, and all three are decided before the last month rather than during it. A new fixed term is agreed and signed; the tenancy rolls on as a periodic tenancy on the same terms with notice running by the period; or it ends, the notice periods set by statute are observed, and a check-out is booked.
The check-out is compared line by line against the schedule of condition taken at the start. Any deduction proposed from a protected deposit is put in writing with the schedule entry, the check-out entry and the photographs attached, and if it is not agreed it goes to the scheme's own adjudication rather than being settled by whoever is more persistent. Fair wear and tear is not damage, and a carpet that has had three winters walked over it is a carpet that has had three winters walked over it.