Private residential tenancy: model agreement

Section 2: glossary of terms & interpretation

In this Agreement, the following words have these meanings except where the content indicates otherwise:

• Assignation: Where a Tenant transfers his or her rights to a private residential tenancy (or share in a joint tenancy) to another person, subject to obtaining the Landlord's prior written permission.
• Common Parts: in relation to premises, the structure and exterior of, and any common facilities within or used in connection with, the building or part of a building which includes the premises but only in so far as the structure, exterior and common facilities are not solely owned by the owner of the premises.
• Data Protection Laws: any law, statute, subordinate legislation, regulation, order, mandatory guidance or code of practice, judgment of a relevant court of law, or directives or requirements of any regulatory body which relates to the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of Personal Data to which a Party is subject including the Data Protection Act 2018 and any statutory modification or re-enactment thereof and the GDPR.
• Eviction ground: one or more of the grounds named in schedule 3 of the Act on the basis of which an eviction order may be issued by the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland Housing and Property Chamber ("the Tribunal").
• Eviction order: an order issued by the Tribunal which brings a private residential tenancy to an end on a certain date.
• Fixed carbon-fuelled appliance: an appliance that is attached to the building fabric or connected to a mains fuel supply and burns fuel to produce energy.
• GDPR: the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC.
• Guarantor: a third party, such as a parent or close relative, who agrees to pay rent if the Tenant doesn't pay it and meet any other obligation that the Tenant fails to meet. The Landlord can take legal action to recover from a guarantor all payments of rent, any other obligations under this Agreement, and any other payments due to the Landlord which the Tenant is required to pay under this Agreement.
• House in Multiple Occupation (HMO): Living accommodation is an HMO if it is occupied by three or more adults (aged 16 or over) from three or more families as their only or main residence and comprises either a house, premises or a group of premises owned by the same person with shared basic amenities (a toilet, personal washing facilities, and facilities for the preparation or provision of cooked food) as defined in section 125 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006.
• Jointly and severally liable: where there are two or more Joint Tenants, each Joint Tenant is fully liable to the Landlord(s) for the obligations of the Tenant under this Agreement including, in particular, the obligation to pay rent. Likewise, each joint Landlord is fully liable to the Tenant(s) for the obligations of the Landlord under this Agreement.
• Landlord: includes any Joint Landlord (also see 'Jointly and severally liable' above).
• Let Property: the property rented by the Tenant from the Landlord.
• Letting Agent: works for the Landlord of a Let Property and offers a range of services from finding suitable Tenants, collecting rent, arranging repairs etc.
• Neighbour: any person living in the neighbourhood
• Neighbourhood: the local area of the Let Property
• Overcrowding: A house is regarded as being overcrowded if it fails either of two tests - the room standard and/or the space standard (see definition of each test below).
• Private Residential Tenancy: a tenancy where the property is let to an individual as a separate dwelling; the Tenant occupies all or part of it as the Tenant's only or principal home; and the tenancy is not one which is excluded under schedule 1 of the Act.
• Registered Landlord: a person who is entered in the register prepared and maintained by the local authority for the purposes of Part 8 of the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004.
• Rent: any sum payable periodically by the Tenant to the Landlord in connection with the tenancy (and includes, for the avoidance of doubt, any sums payable in respect of services, repairs, maintenance or insurance).
• Rent-increase notice: the notice that a Landlord under a private residential tenancy must use when notifying a Tenant of a proposed rent increase.
• Rent officer: an independent officer appointed by law who can decide how much rent is payable under a private residential tenancy. He or she can also decide the amount that a Landlord can add when increasing the rent in a rent pressure zone to reflect any improvements made to a Let Property.
• Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ): a defined area in which Scottish Ministers have put a cap on how much rents for existing Tenants can be increased by each year. Any cap set by Scottish Ministers will be at least consumer prices index (CPI) plus 1%, and can last for up to 5 years. Landlords with property within a rent pressure zone can apply to a rent officer for an additional amount of rent to reflect any improvements they have made to the Let Property.
• Statutory terms: the terms which apply to every private residential tenancy.
• Tenant: includes any joint Tenant or joint sub-Tenant (also see 'Jointly and severally liable' above)
• The Tribunal: the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland Housing and Property Chamber, the body which deals with all civil disputes arising from a private residential tenancy.
• The room standard: this is contravened when two people of opposite sexes, who are not living as husband and wife, have to sleep in the same room. This does not apply to children under 10. The rooms regarded as sleeping accommodation are defined as being 'of a type normally used in the locality either as a bedroom or as a living room'.
• The space standard: sets limits on the number of people who can occupy a house, relative to both the number and floor area of the rooms available as sleeping accommodation. For this purpose, children aged at least one but less than 10 count as half of a person, while children under the age of one do not count at all. Rooms of less than 50 square feet are not taken into account.

Declaring for the purposes of this Agreement that words in the singular include the plural, and where there are two or more persons included in the expression "the Tenant" the obligations and conditions to be met by "the Tenant", including payment of the rent, apply to all such persons jointly and severally.