What Has to Be in a Tenancy Agreement (And What Quietly Gets Left Out)

A verbal tenancy is still a tenancy.

That surprises a lot of first-time landlords. You can hand someone a set of keys, take a month's rent, and never sign anything — and in most places you have still created a legally binding tenancy with a full set of rights and obligations attached to it.

What you have not done is decide what any of those obligations are. The law will fill in the gaps for you, using default rules written by someone who has never met you, your tenant, or your property.

That is the real function of a written agreement. Not to make the tenancy legal — it already is. To make sure the terms are the ones you chose.

The clauses that have to be there

Below is the core set. Miss any of these and you are relying on a default rule, a court, or your tenant's goodwill to settle the question later.

1. The parties

Full legal names of every landlord and every adult tenant, plus an address for serving notices on each side. Not a nickname, not just one tenant of a couple. If a name is wrong, serving valid notice later becomes genuinely difficult.

2. The property, defined precisely

The full address including any flat or unit number. If you are letting a room rather than a whole property, describe the room specifically and list the shared areas the tenant may use. “14 Oak Street” and “the first-floor rear bedroom at 14 Oak Street, with shared use of the kitchen, bathroom and hallway” are very different lettings.

3. The term

Start date, end date, and — this is the part people skip — what happens when the fixed term ends. Does it end automatically? Roll on month to month? Require notice from either side? Silence here is the single most common source of end-of-tenancy confusion.

4. Rent: amount, day and method

How much, how often, which day it is due, and how it is to be paid. Name the account. “Monthly in advance” is not the same as “on the 1st”, and the difference matters the first time rent arrives on the 9th.

5. Late payment

When rent counts as late, and what — if anything — happens then. Read the jurisdiction warning further down before you write anything here. Late fees are capped or prohibited in a great many places, and an unenforceable penalty clause is worse than none at all.

6. Deposit

The amount, what it secures, how it is held, and the basis on which deductions can be made at the end. Again, heavily regulated — see below.

7. Utilities and outgoings

Line by line: electricity, gas, water, broadband, council tax or local property tax, service charge, ground rent. Who pays each one. Ambiguity here costs real money during a void period.

8. Repairs, split by side

What the landlord maintains — structure, exterior, installations for water, gas, electricity, heating. What the tenant is responsible for — typically minor items, keeping the property reasonably clean, and any damage beyond fair wear and tear. Note that the landlord's core repairing obligations are usually set by statute and cannot be contracted out of, however the agreement is worded.

9. Access and notice

Your right to enter for inspections and repairs, and the notice you must give first. Almost every jurisdiction sets a minimum. Writing a shorter one into your agreement does not make it valid.

10. Use and occupancy

That the property is a private residence, who is permitted to live there, and your position on subletting and on guests staying long term.

11. Pets, smoking and alterations

Say something, even if the answer is a flat no. “The agreement did not mention it” is not the argument you want to be having about a dog, a vape, or a wall someone has painted black.

12. Ending the tenancy

Notice periods on both sides, break clauses if any, and what condition the property must be returned in. Statutory notice requirements will override anything shorter you write.

13. Joint and several liability

Where there is more than one tenant, this makes each of them liable for the whole rent rather than a share of it. Without it, one housemate leaving can leave you pursuing four people for a quarter each.

14. Guarantor

If you are using one, the guarantor's obligations belong in writing and the guarantor should sign. A verbal promise from someone's parent is worth what you would expect.

15. Data protection

What personal data you hold about the tenant, why, and how long you keep it. Increasingly expected, and cheap to include.

What quietly gets left out

The clauses above are the ones most templates cover. These are the ones that go missing — and each of them is a dispute waiting for a reason to happen.

An inventory and condition record

Not a clause, but the thing that makes your deposit clause usable. Without a dated, photographed record of the property's condition at move-in, signed by the tenant, you have almost no basis for a deduction at move-out. You will be arguing about whether a mark on a carpet predates the tenancy, with no evidence either way. This is the single most expensive omission on the list.

How rent increases work

If the tenancy might roll beyond the fixed term, the agreement should say how and when rent can be reviewed, and how much notice you must give. Otherwise you are stuck at the original figure until you can end the tenancy — or restricted to whatever statutory procedure applies.

What happens at the end of the fixed term

Mentioned above, and worth repeating because it is skipped so often. Does the tenancy simply end, or continue on a rolling basis? If it rolls, on what notice? A tenant who believes they have to leave and a landlord who believes they are staying are both reading the same silent document.

Who is responsible during a void

If the tenant leaves mid-term with your agreement, who covers the utilities and local property tax until a new tenant moves in? Say so.

The basis for deposit deductions

Not just “damage”, but what counts — and explicitly excluding fair wear and tear, because that exclusion is implied by law in many places and will be applied whether you wrote it or not.

How notices may be served

Post, email, hand delivery? And to which address? A perfectly valid notice served by a method the agreement does not permit can be challenged.

The parts that change completely depending on where you are

This is where a template downloaded from the internet becomes actively dangerous rather than merely incomplete. The following differ enormously between countries, and often between states or regions within them.

The practical consequence: there is no such thing as a universal tenancy agreement. Anyone selling you one is selling you a starting point, whether they say so or not. The honest version of the product tells you which clauses need checking against your local law, rather than pretending the question does not exist.

Before you sign, in order

1. Complete the tenant screening first. The agreement is the last step, not the first. Once it is signed, your options narrow sharply.
2. Fill in every bracket. An unfilled placeholder in a signed agreement is worse than a blank page — it looks like a term that was agreed and then lost.
3. Check the jurisdiction-dependent clauses against your local rules, or have a local solicitor or attorney read them. This is a short, cheap review if you hand over a clean document with the questions already marked.
4. Do the inventory on the same day, with photographs, and have the tenant sign it.
5. Serve any required disclosures at the same time and keep proof that you did.
6. Give the tenant a signed copy and keep yours somewhere you can find it in two years.

Frequently asked questions

Is a verbal tenancy agreement legally binding?

In most jurisdictions, yes — a tenancy exists once someone occupies a property as their home and pays rent. What you lose without a written agreement is not validity but certainty: the specific terms fall back to statutory defaults, and you have nothing to point to in a dispute.

Can I write my own tenancy agreement?

You can. The risk is not the drafting, it is the clauses you do not know are regulated. An unenforceable clause does not simply fail quietly — in some places including a prohibited term is itself a breach.

Does the tenant have to sign for it to count?

A signed agreement is far easier to rely on, but conduct matters too. A tenant who moves in and pays rent on the stated terms has generally accepted them. Get the signature anyway.

What if I want to change a term mid-tenancy?

Both sides have to agree, and the variation should be in writing and signed. You cannot unilaterally rewrite a term you have come to regret.

Do I need a different agreement for a room let?

Usually yes. Letting a room in a shared house raises questions about exclusive occupation, shared areas, and in some places licensing requirements that a whole-property agreement does not address.

A template that admits what it does not know

Our Residential Lease Agreement Template covers all 21 clauses in plain English, with fill-in brackets for every variable and a short note under each clause explaining what it is doing and why.

The part that matters most is the flagging. Every clause whose treatment depends on your jurisdiction — deposit, late payment, notice periods, permitted fees, required disclosures — carries a visible CHECK LOCAL LAW marker explaining exactly what to verify. That turns a solicitor's review from a rewrite into a fifteen-minute read.

Screening comes before signing. If you have not set your criteria yet, our Tenant Screening System scores every applicant against the same tests and records the reason for each decision — which is the evidence you want to have long before you reach the point of handing over keys.

This article is general information for landlords and is not legal advice. Residential tenancy law differs substantially between countries, states and cities, and changes frequently — deposit rules, permitted fees, notice periods and required disclosures in particular. Nothing here should be relied on as a statement of the law where your property is. Have your agreement reviewed by a qualified solicitor or attorney licensed in that jurisdiction before you use it.