When you make an agreement with a tenant to rent a place to live, you have made a contract. The agreement is still a contract even if it is just oral (not in writing).

The things you agree to with the tenant about how and when he will live in the premises will be the terms of the contract. Those terms, plus the law relating to residential tenancies, are the rules that you and the tenant will live by until the agreement ends.

If you or the tenant break any term of the contract, you place yourself at risk of a penalty.

May 2006