A landlord who lets a property in Wales using an assured shorthold tenancy agreement is not signing a slightly outdated document, they are signing the wrong document entirely. Since the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 came fully into force, an AST is not a valid instrument for a Welsh letting at all. This article covers why the mistake happens so often, what actually goes wrong when it does, and how to correct it if you have already handed one over. Our companion piece on issuing an occupation contract in Wales covers the correct process from scratch; this one starts from the position of having already used the wrong template.
> Quick answer: An English assured shorthold tenancy agreement has no legal effect as an occupation contract in Wales, because Wales has run a separate framework, the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, since December 2022. Using one means you have not given the contract-holder a valid written statement, which the Act requires within 14 days of occupation. Compensation runs while that gap continues, and you cannot serve a no-fault notice until it is fixed. The remedy is to issue a proper written statement now, not to keep patching the old document.
Why this mistake is so common
Most letting templates in wide circulation online were written for England, because England has by far the larger rental market and most generic legal document sites default to it. A landlord letting their first Welsh property, or an agent managing a mixed portfolio either side of the border, often reaches for the same AST template used for an English property last year, changes the address, and assumes the rest transfers. It does not. Wales replaced the assured shorthold tenancy with the occupation contract for practically all private residential lettings from 1 December 2022, and the two frameworks use different vocabulary for a reason: they are structurally different systems, not regional variants of the same one.
The confusion is made worse by genuinely similar surface features. Both documents record a property address, a rent, and a fixed or rolling term. What an AST does not carry, and cannot be made to carry by editing the wording, is the fundamental-and-supplementary term structure the Welsh Act requires, or the written statement obligation that structure sits inside.
What the English document fails to do
An assured shorthold tenancy is built around the Housing Act 1988, a framework with no concept of fundamental terms, supplementary terms, or a contract-holder. It has no written statement duty in the Welsh sense, no equivalent of section 173 notice mechanics, and its notice and possession routes are those set out under English housing legislation, not the Renting Homes Act. When a landlord uses this document for a Welsh property, several things fail at once rather than one thing being slightly wrong.
First, the tenant has not received a document that functions as the written statement of an occupation contract, because an AST simply is not one, however carefully it is drafted. Second, the fundamental terms the Welsh Government requires, deposit protection being the clearest example, are not incorporated in the way the Act expects, because the AST was never built to carry them. Third, and this is the part landlords tend to discover only when it matters, a Welsh occupation contract is not properly enforceable in the ordinary way until a valid written statement has been given. Handing over an AST does not start that clock, because it is not the document the Act is asking for.
The written statement gap and what it costs
Because an AST does not satisfy the written statement requirement, the landlord sits in the same position as one who has given no written statement at all, from the date occupation began. Under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, compensation runs at a rate equivalent to a day's rent for each day the statement remains outstanding, up to a maximum of two months' rent, with interest added once that two-month period passes. Where the contract-holder can show the failure was intentional, or persisted after they raised it, the court can double the compensation. A landlord who genuinely believed the AST was fine, because it looked like a proper tenancy agreement and nobody flagged the problem, still owes this compensation. Good faith is not a defence to the underlying compliance gap.
There is a second, separate consequence. A landlord relying on an English-style document has typically not built in the current section 173 no-fault notice mechanics either, since those are drafted around the occupation contract structure rather than an AST. Even once the written statement gap is fixed, a section 173 notice is invalid if the property is not properly registered and licensed with Rent Smart Wales or the deposit was never protected in an authorised scheme, regardless of how the notice period itself is calculated. An AST-based letting arrangement is often behind on more than one of these points simultaneously, because none of them were built into the document the landlord actually used.
How this surfaces later
The gap rarely comes to light through a compliance check. It usually surfaces in one of three moments: the contract-holder disputes a deposit deduction and their adviser flags that the deposit was never protected under the correct framework, the landlord tries to serve a notice to regain possession and the notice fails because the underlying paperwork was never valid, or a prospective buyer's solicitor reviews the tenancy documents during a property sale and asks why a Welsh letting is running on an English tenancy agreement. Each of these moments is more expensive to fix than catching the problem on day one would have been, because by then rent has been collected, deposits taken, and possibly a failed notice already served and re-served with the clock running again.
Fixing it: what to do if you have already handed one over
The remedy is not to keep the AST and quietly add a Welsh-style clause to it. Treat the situation as though no written statement has been given, because in the eyes of the Act, none has. Prepare a proper written statement of a standard occupation contract, incorporating the fundamental and supplementary terms the Act sets out, and issue it to the contract-holder as soon as possible. Confirm Rent Smart Wales registration and deposit protection are actually in place, correcting either if they are not. Once the written statement has been given, the compensation clock for that specific failure stops running, though compensation already accrued for the period before it was fixed does not disappear.
If you manage lettings on both sides of the border, the practical fix is structural rather than one-off: keep a Welsh occupation contract template and an English tenancy template as genuinely separate documents in your process, rather than one master template with regional notes, because the two are not variations of each other.
AST versus occupation contract: what actually differs
| Feature | English AST | Welsh occupation contract |
|---|---|---|
| Governing statute | Housing Act 1988 | Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 |
| Occupier is called | Tenant | Contract-holder |
| Term structure | Freely drafted, implied duties layered on | Fundamental and supplementary terms set by statute |
| Written statement duty | None equivalent | Required within 14 days of occupation |
| No-fault notice | Housing Act 1988 route | Section 173 notice, minimum six months |
| Valid for a Welsh letting | No, since December 2022 | Yes |
Drafting the correct document from vetted clauses
Inside AI Legal Drafting, the 99 Data Rooms template library, the Occupation Contract for Wales sits in the Property and Tenancy group as a genuinely separate template from the Assured Periodic Tenancy for England. The assistant selects vetted clauses by ID against your answers rather than generating wording from scratch, which matters directly here, because a generic AI drafting tool asked for "a Welsh tenancy agreement" can easily produce something that blends the two frameworks without warning you it has done so. See our companion guide on drafting a Wales occupation contract with AI for the full process, and our step-by-step on issuing an occupation contract in Wales for the sequence to follow from the start of a new letting.
Correcting the paperwork and keeping proof you did
Once the correct written statement is ready, share it with the contract-holder as a tracked, revocable link rather than another printed pack. Gate it behind a verified email so there is a clear record of when it reached them, which matters if the timing of the correction is ever questioned later. Page-by-page analytics show whether they opened and read the fundamental and supplementary terms sections, useful evidence that the gap has genuinely been closed rather than simply reissued and ignored.
Where the corrected contract needs re-signing, send it for signature in the browser. Electronic signatures are admissible for most commercial documents in England and Wales, with exceptions including deeds, wills, land transfers and lasting powers of attorney, so the corrected written statement signs cleanly this way, and the executed record carries an audit certificate with signer IP, timestamps and a SHA-256 fingerprint. This is general information, not legal advice. Keep the original AST, the corrected written statement and the dates of each in one room, because a due diligence request during a later property sale, the kind of check covered in our due diligence request list guide, will ask exactly this question, and the same habit of noting any future deadline against the document is worth keeping, as our guide on what happens if you miss a contract renewal date covers.
This article is written for landlords letting property in Wales, where the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 applies and an English tenancy agreement genuinely does not work. If your property is in England, none of the compensation exposure described above applies to you, and the Housing Act 1988 framework in our assured periodic tenancy guide is the correct starting point instead. If you are letting outside England and Wales entirely, the underlying lesson still transfers: confirm which statutory framework actually governs the letting before reusing a template from a different jurisdiction, because the surface similarity between two rental documents rarely means the underlying law is the same.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use an English tenancy agreement for a property in Wales?
No. Since the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 came fully into force, an assured shorthold tenancy has no legal effect as an occupation contract for a Welsh letting. The frameworks are structurally different, not regional variants of each other.
What happens if I already gave a tenant an English tenancy agreement?
You are treated as not having given a valid written statement, since an AST does not satisfy that requirement. Compensation runs at a day's rent per day outstanding, up to two months' rent, until you issue a proper written statement of a standard occupation contract.
Can I still evict a tenant if I used the wrong document?
Not straightforwardly. A section 173 no-fault notice needs the correct underlying paperwork, current Rent Smart Wales registration and deposit protection to be valid, all of which are commonly missing where an AST was used instead of a compliant occupation contract.
How do I fix a Welsh letting that started on an English tenancy?
Issue a proper written statement of a standard occupation contract as soon as possible, incorporating the fundamental and supplementary terms the Act requires, and confirm Rent Smart Wales registration and deposit protection are genuinely in place. Compensation already accrued before the fix does not disappear.
Does this affect the deposit I already took?
It can. If the deposit was not protected in an authorised scheme in the way the occupation contract framework expects, that is a separate compliance gap from the written statement issue, and it should be checked and corrected at the same time, not treated as resolved once the paperwork is fixed.
Use the contract Wales actually requires
Draft a compliant standard occupation contract from vetted Wales clauses, built to the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 structure rather than an adapted English template, and issue the written statement correctly from the start. The free tier gives three rooms and twenty-five active links, forever, with no card required; the AI drafter and e-signature start on Pro at £19 a month. Start for free and stop patching an AST that was never the right document to begin with.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Compensation rules, notice periods and registration requirements in this area have changed before and may change again. Verify anything critical with a qualified adviser or the current guidance on gov.wales and legislation.gov.uk before you rely on it.
Sources
- Written statement of occupation contract, duty to provide within 14 days: Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, s.31, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2016/1/section/31
- Compensation for failure to provide a written statement: Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, s.35 and s.87, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2016/1/section/35 and https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2016/1/section/87
- Setting off compensation against rent: Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, s.88, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2016/1/section/88
- Section 173 notice, minimum notice period: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2016/1/section/173
- Conversion of assured shorthold tenancies to occupation contracts from 1 December 2022: NRLA, https://www.nrla.org.uk//resources/wales/converting-tenancies-to-occupation-contracts
- Written statements and model contracts, Law Wales: https://law.gov.wales/public-services/housing/renting-homes-wales-act-2016
- Rent Smart Wales registration and licensing: https://rentsmart.gov.wales
- Electronic execution of documents, Law Commission (2019): https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/electronic-execution-of-documents/