The snappily titled Assured Shorthold Tenancy Notice and Prescribed Requirements (England) Regulations 2015 come into force 1st October 2015.
In a nutshell, the landlord of any AST granted from 1 October 2015 onwards must provide the following to the tenant:
- Government factsheet “How to Rent: the checklist for renting in England”. To ensure you always pick up the latest version go to the government website for the checklist.
- valid EPC.
- gas safety certificate.
- tenancy deposit prescribed information which actually has to be provided within 30 days of receipt of the deposit.
Only item 1 is an entirely new requirement, but the sting in the tail is that failure to provide all of this information to the tenant (later prove that you did so) will prevent the landlord from being able to serve a valid s.21 notice for possession at the end of the term.
It may be prudent to annex the factsheet, EPC and gas safety certificate to the AST signed by the tenant to avoid any later suggestion that the information was not provided at the start of the term.