Rights and responsibilities
The following information aims to summarise your rights and obligations as well as ours. It is not intended to be an exhaustive document and where there is any area of discrepancy it is the lease which is the superior document.
The lease
Your lease lays down the framework for the use and ownership of your home and details your obligations and rights as a lessee. It also details the services you can expect to receive as well as the restrictions placed upon your use of the property.
Please take the time to read your lease to ensure that you are aware of its full content.
Your responsibilities
By signing the lease you have agreed to do the following.
- Pay the rent and service charges that are due by direct debit, standing order or another agreed method. If you get into debt, we can apply interest to the money you owe.
- Maintain the inside of your home, including keeping it in good decorative order.
- Report any damage to shared or communal areas.
- Not to make alterations to the outside of the property and seek our permission before making any alterations to the inside.
- Tell us about any planning or other legal notices served that affect the building and notify us of any repairs that need to be done to the communal areas.
- Pay costs relating to any legal action that has been taken against you for breaking the terms of the lease.
- Give us access to inspect your home at any reasonable time, as long as we have given you notice. If you have not kept up your repairing obligations under the lease, we have the right to do the work and charge you for it. You must allow our contractors into your property if they need to carry out a repair to the property next door.
- Follow the proper procedures set out in the lease relating to selling shares in your home. This is known as 'assigning your interest'.
- If you are a shared owner and decide to sell your home, you must give us agency rights so we can nominate someone from our approved list.
- Not do anything that would make the buildings insurance policy invalid.
- Only park in proper car-parking spaces.
- Dispose of rubbish properly in the place provided.
- Not cause unnecessary nuisance to your neighbours by playing loud music, blocking shared areas or leaving the building insecure.
Our responsibilities
- Allow you to live undisturbed by us.
- Keep the building (but not personal contents) insured.
- In a block of flats, repair, redecorate and renew the roof, foundations and main structure of the building. This includes all pipes, drains and wiring that serve more than one flat. We will also maintain shared areas and make sure they are well lit.
We will do all of the above as long as you pay the rent. If you do not pay the rent for the period given in your lease (usually 21 days), we have the right to take action and start court proceedings to end your lease.
For more information please refer to the "About your lease" leaflet.