The tenancy trail
Answer – company lets
Tenancies to limited companies cannot be assured or assured shorthold tenancies and this will be a ‘common law’ or unregulated tenancy (we will be looking at others later in this guide). Note that before renting to a company you should always check that it is a ‘real’ company by doing a search at the Companies House website
Tenancies to companies are known as ‘company lets’. For it to be a residential tenancy, it must be for accommodation for the company’s directors or employees. This is the nearest that a company (which is an artificial person, created for legal convenience) can get to living in the property ‘itself’.
We have information on Landlord Law about common law tenancies here and you will find a company let agreement which can be used for this purpose via the Documents and Forms page.
Note that if the property is let to a company for the purpose of subletting to other tenants, then this is a business tenancy and not a residential one.
Landlords need to be very careful about this, and particular renting property on a ‘rent to rent’ basis to someone for the purpose of subletting. Members should watch the video here which gives details of some of the (extremely serious) problems which can occur if care is not taken.
We have some training on ‘Rent to Rent’ which you can read about here.
