Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement (AST)

What is an AST?

To start your tenancy on a sound legal footing, you’ll need an up-to-date contract signed by all parties: landlord, tenants and guarantors. Most rental contracts in the UK are Assured Shorthold Tenancies (AST).

Assured Shorthold Tenancies were introduced by the Housing Act 1988 and updated by the Housing Act 1996. Despite being defined in law, not all ASTs are the same. Although tenancy agreements tend to look broadly similar, there can in fact be quite a lot of variation in language and structure.

Download our AST for free below!

The cost of our contract, with all benefits listed below, is included our Rent Now tenancy creation service

Customised AST drafted for you
Industry best practice
Latest elements of housing law
Editable with Custom Clauses
Integrated in Rent Now
Stored online for safe-keeping
Digital Signatures (learn more)
Professional Tenancy Creation Process

Learn About Rent Now

Feel free to use our AST sample
provided below

Sample our best-in-class AST
Industry best practice
Latest elements of housing law

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Registered OpenRent Users

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Properties Let On OpenRent

Renting in Scotland or Wales?

Under Scottish law, the standard contract is called a Private Residential Tenancy (PRT). To find out more you can view our dedicated page.

Scottish PRT Information

In Wales, the standard tenancy type is an "Occupation Contract". Again, you can find full details by clicking below.

Welsh Occupation Contract Information

Free Sample AST

Here you can download OpenRent's template AST for free. It's the rental lease agreement that we use with our Rent Now landlords. You can trust it, because it's in force in tens of thousands of tenancies across the UK. It incorporates the latest elements of UK housing law, so you can use it as a reference for your own AST.

Choose whether to see a sample of our joint tenancy agreement (for a whole property) or for shared houses. You can download a PDF of each AST free of charge. Our Rent Now users can add their own custom clauses, and collect signatures digitally, as part of our complete tenancy creation process.

Standard AST for whole property AST for individual in a shared house

OpenRent Landlord
5 Stars

"We are so impressed with OpenRent"

They drafted our contract, arranged the references, organised our electrical safety testing, took care of processing the deposit and would have organised everything else if we needed it.

- Andy Raine

Detailed Tenancy Agreement Overview:

For a full introduction to our AST and its different versions, please see our introductory blog post:
Learn more about OpenRent ASTs.