Landlord responsibilities

As a landlord, you have some responsibilities to your tenants in relation to your property; in exchange you get certain rights to help to protect your investment. These responsibilities and rights will usually be laid down in what’s known as a tenancy agreement.

The Government has guides available for prospective landlords, called ’How to Let' and ‘How to rent’, they contain advice you may find useful.

Once you’ve found tenants you’re happy with, you’ll need to get all the paperwork sorted before handing over keys. This includes:

• A tenancy agreement which either you or the letting agent can draw up. You can buy standard templates for tenancy agreements from stationery suppliers.
• Inventory: you may want to draw up an inventory of everything included in the rental, for example fixtures, fittings and furniture, and agree this with the tenants.
• A gas safety certificate: as a landlord your responsible for your tenants gas safety- for full details see the HSE (This link will open in a new window) (This link will open in a new window) website.
• Electrics: These responsibilities and rights will usually be laid down in what’s known as a tenancy agreement.
• Holding your tenants’ deposit with one of the four Tenancy Deposit Protection companies – this is a legal requirement that protects you and the tenant in case of any disputes about the deposit at the end of the tenancy. You can see details of the four schemes at GOV.UK (This link will open in a new window) (This link will open in a new window).
• An Energy Performance Certificate showing the property’s energy use and typical energy costs, and how to reduce energy costs. The tenants will need to see this before they agree to the tenancy.
• Landlord insurance – this is optional, but may be a wise choice as it can protect your property from accidental damage, and cover unpaid rent and legal disputes.