As a landlord, there are various clauses that may be helpful if you are letting to tenants who rent their own rooms, but share common parts (HMO’s). Certain issues may come up with tenants that may not normally arise in a standard letting of the whole property, so it is good to ensure your standard lease contains clauses to deal with some of certain issues.
Therefore we thought we would give a few tips of clauses to include in your leases based on issues we have encountered in recent years.
1. Tenants Will Wait In The Property For Engineers
Leases need to be clear, especially in respect of who is responsible for waiting inside the property for engineers to attend. If something breaks down, sure as the landlord you need to arrange for someone to come and fix it or for the relevant apparatus to be replaced.
Most tenants are helpful once you’ve booked the engineer, but occasionally you do come across some who say they will not wait in the property, that is a landlord’s job.
That may not be physically practical or reasonable. Everyone is busy with their lives and their jobs and being a tenant does not obviate their obligation to wait in their home occasionally for engineers. Therefore I insert a clause that the tenants must stay at homes for engineer appointments.
2. Tenants To Do Viewings
If you are renting room by room, it is unlikely you will be using an agent. You could do the viewings yourself but prospective tenants want to see who they would be living with a vice versa
You would think therefore that tenants in shared houses would want to do the viewings. But quite often they do not respond for requests to show people around. Instead it often falls on the shoulders of the helpful tenant, who before long feels alienated and used.
If the tenants are on a group lease, it is in their financial interests to get a vacant room filled as soon as possible. But if tenants are on individual leases, they may not care and indeed may prefer less people in the house.
Therefore I insert a clause that all tenants will do all the viewings of rooms. They may still ignore your requests to show people around, but it does give you some ammunition if needed.
3. Tenants To Take Photographs Of Room When They Leave
When a whole property becomes empty, you may be using the services of an inventory agent to do a ‘check out’ and then ‘check in’ inventories. . This may not be practical when letting on a room by room basis. As the same time, it may not be practical for you to go and check the room every time someone leaves, if you do not live nearby.
Therefore I insert a clause into leases that incoming and outgoing tenants will take photographs of the room and send them to me. Indeed a recent departing tenant sent a video which was very useful. I also ask the incoming tenant to do a check of the room and report any existing damage for the purposes of their deposit.
4. No Bicycles Inside The Property
Many tenants wants to store their bicycles inside the properties, even in the shared rooms like lounges. As well as being an obstacle when people are trying to evacuate in a fire, they start to make the property look dilapidated.
I once had a debate with a tenant who would not remove his bicycle from the lounge as the clause prohibiting bikes was not stated directly in his lease. Since then, I have inserted a direct clause saying no bikes inside the property.
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