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| Have you ever wished you didn´t have to draft tenancy agreements yourself? |
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(Do you worry about whether your self-drawn tenancy agreement protects you legally? Have you wondered where you could find a solicitor to draw your tenancy agreement without charging you a fortune or taking days to do it?)
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When solicitors´ fees for drawing a residential tenancy agreement can be as high as the first month´s rent, and when tenants clamber to sign an agreement faster than a lawyer takes to draw one, it makes sense to draft your own agreement as an inexpensive way of getting the tenants moved in and paying rent as soon as possible.
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| But if something goes wrong during the tenancy, are you sure it will hold in law? |
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There is a bewildering choice of "complete yourself" residential tenancy agreements out there: how do you choose the right type, and how do you know it´s any good? Should you have an assured shorthold, a license, a lease, a contractual tenancy, a common law tenancy? Should you go for a free copy, or pay? And once you´ve bought it, how do you tailor it so that it protects your legal rights as much as possible and correctly: How can you make sure the tenants pay you the rent? How can you access the property in emergency? What if the tenants upset the neighbours?
And you wish that solicitor didn´t cost so much again.
We know the problem well. Residential tenancy agreements is a crowded market in the online document selling business. We've always been concerned as to how many poorly drawn tenancy agreements are being sold, often because they offer the huge advantages of being short, having few choices to make and therefore being easy and fast to complete. Most of the time the tenancy goes well, and the agreement is never tested. But its getting more common to read on the landlord forums about things going badly (especially in these times) and we think to ourselves "shouldn't that have been covered in the tenancy agreement?"
So we decided to do something about it. We can guarantee that there is nothing quite like what we've come up with out there.
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| Introducing the Document Guru drafting service... |
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The Document Guru is a web based software service that will draw a legally correct tenancy agreement, customised to your exact requirements and deliver it to your inbox, ready for signing, in Microsoft Word format in about 15 minutes.
We´ve used our past experience of being solicitors and taking client instructions to work out the right questions to ask so that we learn everything we need about your situation without you needing to type essays.
You don´t have to worry about what type of tenancy agreement you need and you don´t have to have prior knowledge or experience of tenancy law. We ask you simple, mostly multiple choice questions about how you would like to lease your property. After as few as 20 questions, we´ll have enough information to create a legally sound, comprehensive tenancy agreement tailored to your exact requirements.
Sometimes its easiest to see what we're talking about rather than read about it. If you're looking for an alternative to filling out a Word format tenancy agreement by yourself, click on the button below to start exploring how the system works. You can return here for more information when you're ready or continue all the way to drawing your actual tenancy agreement.
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Start drafting my agreement
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| What we do best: real law in plain English |
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Practical, tested legal experience as the basis for every tenancy agreement
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Your property is a high value investment and it is worth protecting it well. A tenancy agreement with clear, practical and tested terms that cover all the important details is vital in achieving this.
We´ve sold solicitor drafted residential tenancy agreements since we started our business 10 years ago, but for this service, we wanted more than just well-drafted documents. The legal framework for this system has been drawn by a London barrister, who specialises in residential tenancy law. We also wanted to capture the barrister´s practical experience of representing landlords in court. When you use this service, the terms in your agreement will be based on her experience of what a judge will accept, not what a judge should accept.
We use jargon free, plain English in every tenancy agreement so that both sides understand the arrangement, minimising the chance of a misunderstanding in the first place.
All the agreements that this service produces are long form versions (unlike most residential tenancy agreements on the Internet, which need to be short form to be completed easily), and will contain the legal detail necessary to protect your position as a landlord. Detail means less room for subjective interpretation by your tenant, greater assertion of rights favouring you as a landlord, and should you ever find yourself in court, greater ease for a judge to decide what was and wasn´t agreed.
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| The right law chosen automatically for you |
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You don´t have to worry about choosing the right type of legal document. There are many types of tenancy for different situations and some have greater requirements for the landlord than others. Based on the answers you give to our system, we´ll work out which type of agreement is most suitable for you. The system can produce an agreement for most residential tenancies, including assured shorthold, company lets, and common law (also called contractual or non-assured) arrangements, and all without you having to make the choice as to which you need.
We don´t want to give you an incomplete agreement that you need to edit further (although being in Microsoft Word format, you are free to change it however you like). During the drafting phase we provide a wide range of options so that your agreement will be tailored to your needs. Sensible provisions are included by default. Further options include:
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 the possibility of using an agent to act on your behalf |
| multiple landlords where the property has more than one owner |
| multiple tenants |
| guarantor: for when the tenant has no or low income |
| third party inventory preparation |
| different possibilities for rent and deposit |
| over 30 choices of covenants: "promises" made by the tenant that govern how he will look after the property |
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| If there is a something that your final tenancy agreement doesn´t include, that reasonably it should, our legal team will add it for you at no extra cost. |
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Start drafting my agreement
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| Why this service is so much better than ´traditional´ document templates |
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| No difficult questions to answer, no prior legal knowledge needed |
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| We´ve used non-technical language throughout so that you don´t have to be a lawyer to understand the questions and possible answers.
If you do need help, we provide guidance notes next to each question and our legal team can be contacted by e-mail at no cost to answer your questions if they aren´t covered by the notes.
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| A human and intelligent approach to asking questions |
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| We ask questions like your solicitor would do: in a sensible order, as few as possible, and only those that matter. As you progress through the questions, we work out what we no longer need to ask based on your answers to earlier questions. Depending on your requirements, you may answer as few as 20 questions.
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| Minimal typing required |
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| Most of the questions have multiple choice answers. You don´t need to type long answers or worry about whether the words you use are legally correct.
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| Regularly updated for the latest law |
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| Law changes and documents need to be updated. The advantage of a system like ours is that we can keep the document framework – the master template – up to date with the current law and changes we make to it flow through to all agreements that the service subsequently produces. So you have reassurance that your agreement is always based on the latest law.
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| Immediate delivery |
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| Your residential tenancy agreement will be e-mailed to you as soon as you´ve paid. You´ll be able to send a copy to your tenants far faster than if you had used a solicitor or if you had completed it yourself.
We´ll also keep a copy for you in our customer area online for 60 days, so you have access to your agreement even when you´re away from your inbox.
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| Word format – flexibility to reuse |
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| You´ll receive your residential tenancy agreement in Microsoft Word format. If you want to make changes or use it for multiple properties, you'll be able to edit it without restriction.
Each paragraph stands alone in the document, so you can remove a provision that doesn't apply to your case and not affect any other paragraph in the agreement.
(Note: if you choose not to buy from us, make sure that the source of your agreement has a legal team that reviews the law regularly for change, and isn´t just a reseller of the same agreement produced by an independent firm of solicitors five years ago).
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| Priced the same as our ´traditional´ tenancy agreement templates |
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| We´ve priced a tenancy agreement created by this service at the same level as our ´traditional´ Word format templates. You get all the advantages of a traditional template (such as easy editing and reuse) without the worry of whether you´re completing it correctly.
We see requests all the time on property forums for free tenancy agreements. Free is good, but it has three big downfalls:
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1. Without having paid for something, you can't claim damages if it doesn't work. Use free at your own risk. (Net Lawman is actually insured, like solicitors are, up to £10m). |
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2. There is no incentive for the provider to update the agreement to make sure it is legally correct - after all he doesn't make money directly from it, and he can't lose money if its not right. |
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3. There is no incentive to make the product " best-in-class". The provider usually makes money from advertising on the download page. Since the advertisers don't pay him any more for a better document (just for the number of visitors to his site), he has no incentive to develop the agreement to the best it could be. In many cases the operator of the website isn't a solicitor and has no idea whether the template given away is actually any good. Its just one he has obtained a while back.
So charging for a tenancy agreement creates an incentive for the seller to give you a good product. We've gone the extra mile to ensure that both the product and the service are far superior to free or cheap versions. We think that's worth as much as our 'traditional' templates. (Note: if you are interested in the traditional templates, we sell them here: tenancy agreements).
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| Fully guaranteed |
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| All agreements come with a 30 day full money back guarantee. We want you to be very happy with the document, so you´ll have enough time to evaluate it in any way you want (and see it printed). If, for any reason, you´re not completely happy with your tenancy agreement, just e-mail us for a full and immediate refund. |
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Start drafting my agreement
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| Bonuses |
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| When you download your tenancy agreement you'll find that we've included some additional files. These, hopefully, will get you up and running with your tenancy faster and answer some of the questions every landlord (and some tenants) have. There are three reports and three forms: |
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| 1. Report: Residential tenancy: points a landlord needs to know (usually £10)
This is an easily digestible report that provides answers to common landlord questions at the start and throughout the tenancy. It covers points like whether you should insist on a guarantor for the rent, what happens if a new tenant joins, and how to end tenancies.
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| 2. Report: The meaning of fair wear and tear (usually £10)
This report was written by the same barrister who wrote the master document that the Document Guru uses. Fair wear and tear is always a difficult area. Tenants rarely keep a property in the same condition that they would do if they owned it themselves. The problem for the landlord is establishing what a judge would call fair wear and tear and what is damage. A very subjective difference might make a large financial difference. There are no hard and fast rules, but this report will help you determine whether you can reasonably claim that damage was damage.
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| 3. Report: Grounds for evicting a tenant (usually £10)
This report covers the 17 grounds for evicting a tenant in an assured shorthold tenancy under Section 8 of the Housing Act. If your tenants seem to be in breach of their tenancy agreement, this report will help you decide whether you can evict them or whether you need to wait.
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| 4. Form: Tenancy application form (usually £5)
This form is to be filled in by prospective tenants before they move into the house. It contains room for the tenant to provide all the information you need to assess whether you would like to let your property to him or her.
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| 5. Form: Tenancy deposit protection scheme form (usually £5)
Using a tenancy deposit protection scheme is compulsory for landlords letting under an assured shorthold tenancy. Even if you're tenancy agreement isn't an AST some tenants take comfort in knowing that their deposit is held by an independent third party. This is the form that you need to complete and give to your tenants within 14 days of the tenancy starting informing them of the scheme that you are using.
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| 6. Form: Example property inventory (usually £5)
Recording an inventory of what was in the property and the condition in which it was in when the tenants first moved in is crucial to claiming damage or loss successfully when they move out. This is an example form that will help you record the state of the property at the beginning of the tenancy.
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| Try out the service |
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| If you are intrigued to see the system, click on the button below. You can see all the way through to a preview before we ask you whether you'd like to buy. Its the real system, so if you do reach the end and decide you want to see the final tenancy agreement you won't have to re-enter all your information in a different 'non-trial' version. |
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Start drafting my agreement
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| Any questions or feedback? |
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If you have any questions please do contact us. We'd also appreciate your feedback. Since this is a new service, if we can improve it in any way, we'd love to know.
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