Tips On Tenancy Deposit Disputes 38: Tenancy Agreements #2

Tip 38: Get a tenancy agreement drawn up professionally

There are a lot of Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements available for download on the internet and they are, in the most part, fine. They will do the basics of making your let legal. There is, however, absolutely no substitute for getting an agreement drawn up by a solicitor that you trust. Just half an hour or so of their time will get you a legally compliant agreement that includes all the clauses that you need.

Landlords often lose deposit disputes because the clauses they seek to rely on, dealing with supplementary issues such as smoking or pets, are either not there or don’t say what they need them to say. By getting a bespoke document you ensure that you maintain proper control over the conditions of the contractual arrangement. Are you really happy to hand control of your property over to a tenant with only a £5 downloaded pro-forma contract as security?

Getting a solicitor to draw up your AST may seem expensive, but when you consider that you will probably reuse it many many times in your letting career, and that agreements from solicitors come backed by their professional indemnity insurance policy, the value is clear.

Tom Derrett is the Principal of Deposit Claim, an experienced deposit protection adjudicator and an expert on the Deposit Protection Schemes. Tom helps landlords to claim money through the deposit protection schemes.


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