Complete Rental Management: A Landlord's Guide

Letting out a property involves a series of obligations, each with its own timetable and its own penalty. The difficulty is not knowing them one by one, but not missing one when it falls due: an expired diagnostic report at signing, a service charge reconciliation never carried out, a notice to quit served too late. This guide follows the chronological order of a tenancy, from putting the property on the market to the tenant's departure.

Before letting

Three checks determine the very right to let.

The decency of the property. Minimum floor area, absence of any risk to safety and health, basic fittings. To these criteria is now added an energy performance requirement: the most energy-intensive properties are being progressively excluded from the rental market, in successive stages. An indecent property is not merely open to criticism, it exposes the landlord to a suspension of rent.

The technical diagnostic file. It must be complete and up to date at signing, and appended to the lease. The validity periods for letting differ from those applicable to sale, which makes reusing a sale file risky — the detail is set out in our article on mandatory property diagnostics.

The rent-setting regime. In rent-control areas, rent is capped at an increased reference rent, with a supplement possible only if the property has exceptional features. Outside these areas, rent is unrestricted for a first letting but capped on re-letting in certain municipalities.

Choosing between unfurnished and furnished letting

This choice is not purely a tax matter; it governs the length of the lease and the mechanics of notice to quit.

For an unfurnished letting, the lease runs for three years where the landlord is a private individual, and the landlord's notice period is six months. For a furnished letting, the lease runs for one year — or nine months for a student, with no automatic renewal — and the landlord's notice period drops to three months.

Furnished letting offers greater flexibility and often a more favourable tax regime, at the cost of faster turnover and a fit-out obligation whose list is set by decree. A property presented as furnished but incomplete can be reclassified as an unfurnished letting, with retroactive application of the three-year lease.

Selecting the tenant

The documents a landlord may require are exhaustively listed by decree. Requesting a document outside that list — bank statements, proof of no outstanding loans, medical records — is prohibited and can be penalised.

Selection may not be based on any discriminatory criterion. It may, however, be based on solvency, assessed from the permitted supporting documents, and on the guarantees offered: joint guarantor, public rental guarantee, unpaid rent insurance. The latter two cannot freely be combined with an individual guarantor, save for exceptions.

The lease and its appendices

The tenancy agreement for a property used as a main residence follows a statutory model contract. Mandatory appendices must be added: the information notice, the technical diagnostic file, and, for leasehold flats, extracts from the co-ownership regulations relating to the building's purpose and to the use and enjoyment of common areas.

These appendices are not merely decorative: their absence can be argued in court, and it deprives the landlord of the ability to rely on the documents concerned. Signing the lease and its appendices as a single dated set, which can be shown not to have been reassembled afterwards, resolves this issue on a lasting basis — that is the main benefit of the electronic signature of a residential lease.

The property condition report, the key document on departure

The move-in property condition report is only useful when compared with the move-out one. Its value therefore lies in its precision: room by room, fixture by fixture, with a level of detail that will, two or three years later, make it possible to distinguish damage from normal wear and tear.

In the absence of a move-in property condition report, the property is deemed to have been handed over in good condition, and no deduction may be made on departure. This is the harshest penalty in the system, and it is automatic. The signing of a property condition report that is time-stamped and cannot be altered afterwards removes any argument over the date and content of the document.

During the tenancy

Four obligations recur, each on its own schedule:

• The rent receipt, to be issued free of charge on the tenant's request.
• Rent review, possible only if a clause in the lease provides for it, within the limit of the rental reference index, and within one year of its effective date — after that period, that year's review is lost.
• The annual service charge reconciliation, mandatory, with a breakdown of the statement by type of charge. The line between what is recoverable and what remains the landlord's responsibility is covered in our article on service charges.
• Repairs, split between tenant repairs, the list of which is set by decree, and everything else, which is the landlord's responsibility.

End of the lease

The tenant may give notice at any time, with a three-month notice period, reduced to one month in high-demand areas and in several personal situations.

The landlord may only do so at the end of the lease term, with a six-month notice period for unfurnished lettings, and for one of three exhaustively permitted grounds: repossession to live in the property, sale, or a legitimate and serious reason. The notice must state the grounds, and a notice given for repossession or sale must include mandatory particulars, failing which it is void. The precise arrangements are set out in detail in our article on termination of the lease.

The security deposit is returned within one month where the move-out property condition report matches the move-in one, and within two months otherwise. Any deduction must be justified by supporting documents — quotes, invoices, reports — and late payment attracts penalties calculated per month begun, without any fault having to be proven.

Use cases

First property let out. The order to follow is diagnostics, decency, checking rent controls, then drafting the lease. Reversing this order leads to signing a lease with a missing appendix or an irregular rent.

Rent arrears. A swift response matters more than the amount. Formal demand, followed by triggering the termination clause via a payment order served by a judicial officer. Procedural timeframes mean that waiting costs more than acting.

Managing several units. This becomes a scheduling matter: diagnostic deadlines, annual review dates, reconciliation deadlines, notice periods. Tracking by deadline and by unit is the only approach that holds up beyond two or three properties.

Frequently asked questions

Can a landlord refuse a tenant without giving a reason? The landlord chooses freely, but without any discriminatory criterion, and without requiring documents outside the list set by decree. The refusal need not be justified, but the selection method, if challenged, must be capable of being justified.

What notice period applies to give notice to quit? Three months for the tenant, reduced to one month in high-demand areas and in several particular cases. Six months for the landlord in an unfurnished letting, three months for a furnished one, only at the end of the lease term and for a permitted reason.

What happens without a move-in property condition report? The property is presumed to have been handed over in good condition. No deduction from the security deposit is then possible on departure, regardless of the actual state of any damage.

Can the rent be increased during the tenancy? Only if a review clause is included in the lease, within the limit of the reference index, and provided it is applied within the year following its effective date. After that period, that year's review can no longer be recovered.

Within what timeframe must the security deposit be returned? One month if the move-out property condition report matches the move-in one, two months otherwise. Any deduction must be justified by supporting documents, and exceeding the deadline triggers penalties.

Can an incomplete furnished lease be reclassified? Yes. If the fit-out does not match the statutory list, the lease can be reclassified as an unfurnished letting, with the corresponding consequences for its duration and for notice to quit.

Key points

Property management is less a matter of law than a matter of timing. The obligations are well known; it is their deadlines that give rise to disputes — an expired diagnostic report on the day of signing, a rent review requested thirteen months after its effective date, a service charge reconciliation never carried out, a notice to quit served with five months' notice instead of six.

Two documents account for most of the financial risk: the lease with its appendices, and the move-in property condition report. For both, what provides protection is not the content alone, but the ability to establish, years later, what was signed, by whom and on what date.