AA tenancy file is only useful to somebody who was not there
That is the test the office works to. A file passes it when a reader who did not attend the sign-up can open it and see what was agreed, what was handed over, what has changed since and on what date. It fails when the answer is in somebody’s memory.
So every step in a tenancy produces one dated document; the document is filed under the tenancy reference issued at sign-up; and a line about it goes on the tenancy-changes return in the week the step completes. Three operations, in that order, for a change of name as much as for a sign-up.
BAt sign-up, in the order the appointment is worked
The reference is issued before anything is signed, because every later document is filed under it. The appointment then runs in a fixed order so that nothing is remembered afterwards: the names to go on the agreement; the agreement read and signed; the keys counted and signed for; the meters read at the board or the cupboard and written on the reading note; the condition of each room recorded and dated; standing contact details taken; and the way to report a repair explained and left in writing.
The order matters because the condition record and the meter note are worth nothing written later. They are taken at the door, on the day, with the keys in hand.
- Issued first
- The tenancy reference. Every document, repair report and inspection record for that unit is filed behind it.
- Documents produced
- Sign-up sheet, signed agreement, key receipt, meter reading note, room-by-room condition record, standing contact sheet.
- Left with the household
- A copy of the agreement, the key receipt, and the written note of how to report a repair and what the office will ask for.
- Returned
- One line on the tenancy-changes return that week: sign-up, the date it took effect, the documents produced.
CWhile the tenancy runs, the small changes are the ones that get lost
Each one looks too minor to write down, which is exactly why the office writes it down. A name changes. Somebody joins the household or leaves it. A different number answers the phone. A household asks for correspondence to go to a second address. None of these is an event on its own; together they decide who may be let into a property and who the office may discuss a repair with, so each is a dated note against the tenancy reference.
Where a change affects who is liable under the agreement, or who may be given access, it is recorded as an amendment to the agreement rather than as a note, and both parties sign it. The distinction is kept deliberately: a note records what the office was told, an amendment records what was agreed.
- Recorded as a note
- Contact numbers, a second correspondence address, access arrangements such as a working pattern or a dog in the garden, and anything the household asks the office to hold.
- Recorded as an amendment
- A change to the names on the agreement, an assignment, a change to who is named on the rent account. Signed, dated, copied to the file and to the household.
- Not recorded here
- Repair reports. Those belong on the repairs log under their own reference, and they reach the association on a different return.
DEnding a tenancy works backwards from the day the keys come in
An ending starts with a notice in writing, dated the day it was given and not the day it was discussed. From that date the office works a short list: a pre-end visit where access is granted, so that anything needing an order is raised before the unit is empty; the date and time the keys will be returned; the meters read again on that day; the condition recorded room by room against the sign-up record; and a forwarding address taken for correspondence.
When the keys are in, the tenancy file is closed with the end date on the front and the unit moves onto the voids and relets return at the next month end. The two condition records — sign-up and end — stay together, because they are only meaningful read as a pair.
- Documents produced
- The notice, the pre-end visit note, the keys-returned receipt, the closing meter note, the end-of-tenancy condition record.
- Dated by
- The day the notice was given, the day the keys came in. Not the day either was agreed in conversation.
- Then
- The unit appears on the voids and relets return with the stage it has reached, until it lets again.
EWhat actually leaves this office about a tenancy
The fact of a change, the date it took effect, the document it produced, and where that document is filed. Not a household’s circumstances, not the conversation in which a change was mentioned, and not a view about anybody. The association reconciles the line against its own tenancy list; if it needs the document itself, it asks for it by the reference on the line.
What the office holds, how long it is kept and who reads it is set out on Records held.