As a student let landlord, you have responsibilities and legal requirements to adhere to. This chapter deals with general guidelines and legal aspects that you should be aware of. Like any dealings with tenants, be they student or professionals, landlords face three broad categories:

Contractual requirements

This refers to the legal contracts that you must sign and adhere to if you wish to do business. You are expected to fulfil your legal obligations as outlined by the terms of the contract. Breach of terms could ultimately result in legal proceedings against you. As a landlord, you will enter into legal contracts with your lender, the tenant, the insurers and, possibly, the lettings agents.

Contracts with the lender

Prior to entering into a contract with a lender they have to know about you. The lender asks you a number of questions and expects the truth. If they find that you have misled then by any of your answers to their questions, they can demand repayment of the loan in full plus all recovery costs. They can also inform the police and charge you with obtaining finance by deception. This is fraud and you can go to prison.

Once the lender has established that you are a person worth lending to, you will have to sign their contract. As the lender has lent money to you it is their right to set the terms of the contract. Unless you are borrowing a large sum of money then you can never include any clauses in the contract based on your terms – that’s just the way it is. The key terms of the contract are:

Please review Lawpacks Residential Lettings Guide for more in-depth discussion.

• Payment. You have to pay the mortgage repayments on the dates the lender dictates. If you fail to do so the lender can repossess the property.
• Maintenance. You must keep the property in a good state of repair fit to be habitable.
• Occupation. You must not leave the property vacant for more than 30 days.