Free tenancy agreement

Many landlords look to minimise their costs. By a landlord saving on their overheads this will help a landlord to maximise their net revenue. One way that a landlord can potentially save money is by obtaining a free assured shorthold tenancy agreement. Ostensibly there should be no difference for a landlord in securing a free tenancy agreement than one that they have to pay for.

Cost savings by Downloading Free Tenancy Agreements

The cost savings for a landlord obtaining a free tenancy agreement are not huge. For instance it is possible to obtain a tenancy agreement for as little as £5; most landlords will pay nearer £10 for a tenancy agreement. However, these costs mount up if a tenancy form has to be purchased each time a landlord creates a new tenancy. For a landlord that potentially creates 3 tenancies a year this would amount to a potential saving of £30.

Where to get a free tenancy agreement

There are a number of websites that allow landlords to obtain a free tenancy agreement. To my knowledge there are at least four. The best way for landlord to find a free tenancy agreement is to Google the term. This will bring up a number of opportunities for landlords to secure a free copy of a tenancy agreement.

Most websites that provide a free tenancy agreement require the landlord to sign up for a tenancy agreement and then they will send or enable the landlord to download a blank tenancy agreement that has to be filled out using pen and ink. The details in this tenancy agreement have to be filled in several times as a landlord requires a tenancy agreement for themselves and each of the tenants they are letting to.

There is one website that provides free tenancy agreement in a slightly different way in that the landlords’ sign up details are used to pre-populate the tenancy agreement. This tenancy is then stored on the landlords unique user account as a record and can be down loaded and printed as a PDF any time by the landlord before being given to the tenant. There are advantages for the landlord of this mode of operation in that the landlords tenancy agreements are accessible anywhere the landlord has internet access. The landlord also has no fear of loosing their tenancy agreement should they suffer a hardware failure or loss.

Things a landlord should look out for in getting a free tenancy agreement

A tenancy agreement needs to set out the landlords and tenants’ rights and responsibilities. Therefore, it’s important that any solicitor that prepares this tenancy agreement is suitably experienced and qualified. A landlord should make sure that they can check out the source of their free tenancy agreement and that the tenancy agreement has not just been ‘cobbled together’ by an unscrupulous website operator. Otherwise a landlord might find that the free tenancy agreement is not worth the paper the tenancy agreement is printed on!

If their is no mention or link to the solicitor who has prepared the free tenancy agreement or to the nature of it's source then I would advise landlords to move on, or at least contact the website to obtain this information.