Rent agreement: Points to remember
Rent agreement is an important document which defines the legally binding relationship between the tenant and the landlord. Usually, a broker is involved in carrying out the initial transaction between the two parties. However, both the parties can also take help of a lawyer to draw the rental agreement.
A rental agreement is a legal document which lays down the conditions on which relationship between the landlord and the tenant is determined. Seeking a home for rent and settling down on one may turn out to be a matter of contention on many grounds. The tenant may not pay up the rent on time or there may be disputes with the land lord on numerous matters. Rent agreement details would determine how disputes are to be handled and how both parties would carry out their respective duties.
Here are few facts that you should keep in mind to make the agreement legally binding and valid.
Always insist on presence of two non-beneficiaries while the rental agreement is being signed between the two parties. The rent agreement ought to be signed by the two non-beneficiaries to make it a valid one.
You can register the rental agreement by paying a stamp duty. Registering the rental agreement would mean that it would have more power invested in it, rather than being just a valid document.
In order to make it a smart rent document, it should contain the duties and responsibilities of all the parties concerned. A smart rent agreement would also include names of all the people living in the building. If the agreement contains names of everybody living under the same accommodation, then it lays down the ground for the usage of common property among all the tenants.
The agreement should contain the tenure of tenancy. Specific dates from which date to which the lease of the agreement would be valid have to be mentioned.
The rental amount has to be clearly mentioned in the document, along with the amount deposited in the account. The agreement must contain details related to terms of deduction and return of the deposit money. The agreement should also include due date of payment of rent and the grace period. It also should contain the mode of payments – through cash or cheque or draft.
The agreement should detail the procedure for rent escalation every month – for example, many owners raise the rent by 5% every year.
It is the duty of every tenant to keep the rented place clean and undamaged. Hence, maintenance and repairing responsibilities should be mentioned in the rent agreement. Alongside the rent value, maintenance fee payable every month and the payment date should also be in the agreement. While minor repairments are to be handled by the tenant, major repairments are taken care of by the land owner.
The landlord may have some restrictions regarding movement, parking usage or may have particular usage of property resources. These decorum details are to be recorded in the rent agreement so that there arises no disputes between the parties. Some rented properties may require certain society rules to be adhered by the tenant or some land lord may not allow certain activities on his/her compound. All these should be in a documented form.
Every tenancy agreement should contain details as to how to renew the agreement. The terms and procedure of renewal of the rent agreement as well as the notice period the tenant would have to serve before leaving the rented home have to be recorded in the rent agreement. The rental agreement’s rules and conditions lay invalid if any or both the parties do not adhere by them. Hence, it is of extreme importance that the agreement contains notice period.
