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Repairing your home: short lease tenants

Short leases are leases for periods of less than seven years. Short leases can be decided by private landowners, registered social landowners or public bodies such as local councils.

They include periodic tenancies where the tenant has not got a set term agreement and occupies property on, for example, a weekly or monthly basis. In some cases the arrangement between the parties will not be a tenancy but a license.

What obligations does the tenant have?

Under ordinary law, if you are a tenant then you must use the property in a responsible way. You must take proper care of it. For example:

• you should turn off the water if there is a risk of burst pipes when you are going away
• unblock the sink when it is clogged up by waste
• you should not damage the property and should make sure that your family and guests do not do so - if they do, you may be responsible for the damage

The landowner can seek possession where the renter or someone living with him or her has damaged the property.

Apart from your duty to take care of the property, you generally only have to do repairs if the terms of your tenancy agreement say that you must. However, whatever the tenancy agreement says, you can't be made to do repairs for which the landowner is by law responsible.

For more information, read the housing booklets from the Department for Communities and Local Government on 'A better deal for council tenants - your Right to Repair', 'Assured and assured short hold tenancies a guide for tenants' and 'Regulated tenancies'.