In England and Wales, an assured shorthold tenancy is the most common type of tenancy agreement used by landlords.
An assured shorthold tenancy agreement (also known as an AST) allows a landlord to let a property to a tenant. The term of an assured shorthold tenancy agreement is usually 6 or 12 months and will usually convert to a rolling periodic tenancy at the end of the initial term.
A sole occupancy tenancy agreement is when a tenant rents the entire property and has exclusive possession of the property. This means that the landlord needs to seek permission to enter and can only repossess the property from the tenant by serving a notice under certain conditions. The conditions for serving a notice will depend on the status of the tenancy (within the initial term, at a break point or rolling) and whether the tenant has breached the terms of the tenancy agreement or not.
Risks such as fire, flood, storm, earthquake and others can be insured against by the Landlord. Whilst a landlord does not need to have insured risks to let their residential property, it helps protect themselves in the event of damage from one of these risks.
An insurance policy for an insured risk is one of the many types of insurance a landlord can take for a property. A tenant is however usually responsible for insuring their contents.
A landlord can easily specify in the Legislate tenancy agreement if they have insured risks or not. This provides clarity to the tenant as well who will be indirectly affected in the event that the property is damaged by an insured risk.