Assured shorthold tenancy agreement (AST): student accommodation; single room; no deposit

What this document does

This agreement creates an assured shorthold tenancy for a single student room.

It is constructed around the academic year, so that you ask for rent at a time when the tenant can pay. This is the best insurance against a student leaving before the final payment has been made and when you cannot re-let for a short period.

The agreement also makes no provision for a deposit. To some students, an argument with a landlord about a deposit is a fair fight, leaving the landlord in a position where he has to choose between fighting back, probably over several months, or losing accreditation with university accommodation bureaux. What is more, the compulsory deposit system also tends to tie up the landlord’s money. If you take money up front and forget about a deposit, you know where you are. If there is serious damage to fixtures, fittings and furniture, you can still sue in the county court.

This tenancy is still an assured shorthold. That permits the landlord to obtain vacant possession with certainty at the end of the term, or at any time when the tenant is in breach of the agreement.

As in all our ASTs, we give you a choice of over 35 items of control provisions (covenants) to protect your property. Of course, you can also choose to keep in or take out “standard” terms such as a provision for guarantor.

Like every Net Lawman document, it is in plain English so that your tenant can never say it was not clear.

The agreement includes extensive drafting notes, including a summary of a landlord’s legal obligations.

Alternative documents

If you would like to take a deposit and use a standard deposit protection scheme, we have another agreement for letting a single room under an AST that includes this.

If you (the landlord) also live at the property (for example, you are renting a spare bedroom), you should use a residential licence agreement and not an AST. This gives the tenant far fewer rights and allows you to give less notice to him or her to move out. We also have a version specifically for student-lodgers.

The law relating to this document

This agreement complies with:

• the Housing Acts (1988 and 1996)
• the Tenant Fees Act 2019