Okay so you passed the stage of considering whether to buy or rent a home for yourself and you opted for the renting option. What happens once you’ve decided on which place to rent is extremely important, So pay close attention whether your are a landlord or a tenant!
A lot of people are not aware of the fact that Malaysia does not have any specific law on tenancy so the landlords do not have a lot of protection or a proper legal backup in case the legal dispute between tenants and landlords happen. To prove this claim, data coming from The Global Property Guide says that the laws in Malaysia in comparison with the other Asian countires are pro-tenant, based on the following factors:
- Free agreement between tenants and landlords
- Rental deposits requirements and limited amounts
- Length of contracts and possibility of extensions
- Early termination and penalties for it
- The efficiency of court system
- Eviction time for non-payment of rentals
To confirm you can check out the chart below, taken from the Global Property Guide website.
A data showing the comparison between the landlord and tenant laws between the Asian countries. Taken from Global Property Guide
This is, of course much better news for tenants than it is for landlords so if you are a landlord you better focus for the following paragraph.
If you want to create a good tenancy agreement that would protect landlords from all the possible inconveniences with their tenants and the other way around, they need to make sure all the terms and conditions suit both parties It would mean that all the parties are deciding on the contract details based on their free will and mutual agreement. Despite the contract being mutually beneficial it is necessary to pay extra close attention to what is being agreed upon. Both tenant and landlord should read the agreement carefully before signing anything to make sure all the details are put down properly and transparently. It is important to emphasise this because tenancy agreement is the only legally binding document between the two parties so the terms stated inside are the terms that legally apply once the document is signed.
The traditional kind of contracting will soon become a history once e-contracting becomes more popularized and Roomz.asia will be the first one to make the digital contracting come true which would save both tenants and lanlords from all the paperwork and walk from one location to another just for a lousy piece of paper.
Whether they are on paper or digital, here are the major terms to look out for in any agreement before you sign it: Payment method, Tenancy period, Deposit, rental, renewal options, GST, Terms and conditions, The main reason for the tenancy, Date, yield up date and Commencement.
In case you are wondering how the overal tenancy agreement should look like here is a great example of a standard tenancy agreement.
Before taking the legal matter into your own hadns, our warm advice would be to consult legal experts because life becomes much easier that way. True, it costs some money but it protects you from losing even more money and energy if an accident between landlord and a tenant happens… So what’s it going to be?
