The tenancy agreement a Nairobi landlord should actually sign

Almost every tenancy agreement we are handed when taking over a Nairobi property is the same document: a template downloaded from a stationery shop or a search result, with the names and the rent typed in. It is usually two pages, it is usually silent on the four things that decide who wins an argument, and its owner usually has no idea it is silent on them until the argument arrives.

A tenancy agreement is not paperwork you complete in order to start collecting rent. It is the entire set of rules under which every future dispute about that property will be decided. When a tenant stops paying, damages a fitting, refuses access, sublets the spare room or leaves nine months into a twelve month term, the only question a tribunal or a court asks is what the agreement says. If it says nothing, the answer defaults to the general law, and the general law is more generous to the occupant than most landlords expect.

What the agreement has to contain

Start with the parts that are not optional. Getting any of these wrong makes the rest of the document harder to enforce, because a court that finds the basics careless reads the whole agreement with less sympathy.

1. The parties, in full and correctly. Full legal names as they appear on identity documents, ID or passport numbers, and a postal and physical address for each. Where the landlord is a company, the registered name and company number, not the trading name. Where the property is jointly owned, every registered owner must be a party or must have given written authority to the one who signs.
2. The property, described precisely. The physical address, the unit or house number, the land reference or title number where available, and an express statement of what is included: parking bays by number, a store, a servants quarter, a garden. A dispute about whether the second parking bay was part of the letting is entirely avoidable and entirely common.
3. The term, with dates. A start date, an end date, and a clear statement of what happens at the end: whether it terminates, renews for a further fixed term, or continues month to month. Silence here is the single most frequent cause of a tenancy that nobody can cleanly end.
4. The rent, and the mechanics of paying it. The amount, the currency, the day of the month it falls due, the account or paybill it is paid into, and whether it is payable in advance. Add what happens when it is late: the grace period, if any, and the interest or penalty rate.
5. The deposit, and the terms for returning it. The amount, what it secures, the period within which it is refunded after vacating, and the categories of deduction permitted.
6. Who pays what. Rent is the easy one. Set out separately who bears service charge, water, electricity, refuse, internet, security levy and any special levy the management company raises during the term.

The four omissions that actually cost money

The list above is what a decent template already covers. What follows is what almost none of them do, and it is where the money is lost.

One: deposit deductions, defined in advance

Nearly every deposit dispute in Nairobi turns on the same disagreement. The landlord treats the deposit as covering anything the property needs on the way out. The tenant treats it as covering damage only, and argues that repainting a wall they lived in front of for two years is not damage but wear.

Both readings are arguable when the agreement says only that the deposit covers damage. The fix is to define the categories in the document: rent arrears, unpaid utilities up to the date of vacating, the cost of making good damage beyond fair wear and tear, and the cost of removing anything left behind. Then state what fair wear and tear means for that property, because it is a legal standard with no fixed content and whoever defines it first has the advantage.

Two: access, and how much notice it takes

A landlord has no automatic right to enter a let property. That surprises people who own the building, but the tenant has exclusive possession for the term, and entering without a right to do so is a trespass no matter whose name is on the title. What a tenant can actually do about it once it has happened, which is the call we field most often, is set out in landlord entered without notice.

So the right has to be written in. A workable clause reserves access for inspection, repair, and showing the property to prospective tenants or buyers in the final months of the term, on stated written notice, at reasonable hours, with an exception for genuine emergency. Without it, a landlord who needs to inspect a suspected leak is dependent on the tenant agreeing.

Three: the repair split, in dates and numbers

The usual wording is that the landlord is responsible for structural repairs and the tenant for minor ones. Nobody agrees where the line falls. A blocked drain, a failed water heater, a gate motor: each of these is argued about monthly across Nairobi because the agreement did not say.

Put a number on it. Below a stated figure the tenant handles and pays; above it the landlord does, on written notice within a stated number of days. Add a clause requiring the tenant to report any defect promptly, because a tenant who lets a small leak run for four months has converted a minor repair into a structural one, and you want the agreement to say who carries that.

Four: subletting, and short-letting in particular

Most templates prohibit assignment and subletting in general terms drafted long before anyone listed a spare room by the night. A general prohibition probably catches short-letting, but probably is not a word you want in the clause that stops your two bedroom apartment operating as an unlicensed hotel.

Name it. Prohibit assignment, subletting, parting with possession, and the use of the premises for short-stay or holiday letting on any platform, without prior written consent. If the building itself restricts short lets, and a growing number of Nairobi buildings now do, reference those house rules and attach them.

A tenancy agreement is not the document you sign to start the tenancy. It is the document that decides every argument you will have for the next two years, written before you know what the arguments will be.

The attachment that does more work than the agreement

A dated, photographed, signed inventory and schedule of condition, attached to the agreement and initialled by both parties, settles more disputes than any clause in the main document. It records what was in the property, what state it was in, and what the meters read on the day the tenant took possession.

Without it, a deposit deduction is one person’s recollection against another’s two years later. With it, the deduction is arithmetic. It is the cheapest protection available to a landlord and the one most often skipped, usually because the tenant is keen and everyone wants to get the keys handed over.

Which law your agreement sits under

A Kenyan residential tenancy falls into one of two regimes, and which one applies changes the notice periods and the forum for a dispute. Where the rent is at or below the threshold under the Rent Restriction Act, the tenancy is controlled: the Act supplies notice periods and the Rent Restriction Tribunal hears disputes, and your agreement cannot contract out of either. Above that threshold, which covers most modern letting in the neighbourhoods we manage, the tenancy is governed by the agreement itself and by ordinary common law principles.

The practical consequence is that in the unregulated majority, the agreement is doing nearly all of the work. There is no statute quietly filling the gaps in your favour. Whatever the document omits, the general law decides, and it decides without much regard for what you assumed.

Signing, witnessing and stamping

• Both parties sign every page. Initialling each page closes off any later argument that a page was substituted.
• Witness the signatures. A witness for each party, with name, ID number and signature.
• Attach and initial the annexures. The inventory, the schedule of condition, the house rules, the meter readings.
• Keep an original each. Two originals executed, one held by each party. A photocopy in a drawer in another country is not a comfortable evidential position.
• Consider stamping. Stamp duty on a lease depends on the term and the rent. Longer leases attract duty and unstamped instruments can face admissibility problems in evidence. Ask an advocate whether yours needs it rather than assuming it does not.

How Goldstay handles it

Every long term tenancy we place is written on our own agreement rather than on a template, and it carries all four of the clauses above as standard, along with a photographed inventory and schedule of condition signed on the day of handover. Meter readings go in the same document. We would rather spend an hour on the agreement than a year on a dispute it could have prevented, and the arithmetic is not close.

Where we take over a property that already has a tenant on somebody else’s agreement, we read it, tell you plainly what it does not cover, and put the gaps right at renewal. That is part of long-term management rather than an extra, and there is no fee for drafting the agreement on a property we manage.

Related reading: how we screen tenants before any of this matters, deposit disputes in Nairobi, and the eviction playbook for when it fails anyway. If an agent will be collecting the rent under this tenancy, the separate contract appointing them is covered in the property management agreement, clause by clause.