Determining whether the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 applies

A client must have accommodation with a tenancy agreement for the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 to apply.

Generally, this will be a tenancy agreement from Tenancies Services. However, the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 may still apply if the client does not have a tenancy agreement from Tenancies Services.

Other evidence of a tenancy agreement could be written communication between the accommodation supplier and the client if they are in an accommodation agreement that the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 applies to.

If there is a verbal agreement, the accommodation supplier should write this down when the client is applying for a Housing Support Product so that MSD can determine whether the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 applies.

Note parties to an accommodation agreement can choose to contract into some or all of the provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986. This may include things like lodging a bond with tenancy services or agreeing to use the Tenancy Tribunal for dispute resolution. However, contracting into the provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 in this way does not mean that the accommodation agreement is an RTA agreement for the purposes of the Housing Support Programme.

If it is unclear whether a document is a tenancy agreement under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 or not, below is a list of information that is usually part of this type of agreement:

• the full name and contact address of the landlord
• the landlord's contact mobile telephone number (if any)
• the landlord's contact email address (if any)
• the full name and contact address (when different from the address of the premises to which the agreement relates) of the tenant
• the tenant's contact mobile telephone number (if any)
• the tenant's contact email address (if any)
• the address of the premises
• the date of the tenancy agreement
• the date of commencement of the tenancy (when different from the date of the tenancy agreement)
• the landlord's address for service
• the tenant's address for service
• whether the tenant is under the age of 18
• the amount of any bond
• the rent payable
• the frequency of the rent payments
• the place or bank account number where the rent is to be paid
• a list of any chattels provided by the landlord
• if the tenancy is a fixed-term tenancy, the date on which the term will expire
• Healthy Homes compliance statement
• insulation statement
• insurance statement

The agreement should be signed by both parties but if it's not signed, it may still be a valid agreement. In these cases, MSD can use other evidence to determine that there is an agreement in place. For example, bank account statement showing rent payments.