Types of leases:
There are three types of lease agreements.
- The residential rental agreement;
- The commercial lease;
- The common lease;
These three types of agreements are governed by separate pieces of legislation.
For example, the commercial lease is regulated by the Commercial Lease Act.
The common lease by the General Civil Code and the residential lease by the Flemish Housing Decree.
Duration of Agreement:
The duration of each agreement depends primarily on the category into which the lease falls.
In the current blog post, we will discuss only the short-term residential lease.
What is a “short” lease?
The general rule on residential leases is that an agreement is entered into for a period of 9 years.
However, this does not mean that the lease is effectively 9 years.
After all, the residential lease agreement provides for different options for terminating the lease at different times.
However, the Flemish Housing Decree explicitly provides for the possibility to deviate from the legal rules when there is a short-term contract.
A short-term contract is any contract that is shorter or equal to three years.
Termination options:
The Flemish Housing Decree stipulates that in the case of short leases, it is possible to deviate from the legal termination options.
A short lease can be interesting in some cases both for the tenant and the landlord.
It is usually the landlord who will propose a short-term agreement.
After all, this allows the landlord to avoid committing himself for too long to a tenant he does not know.
Exclusion of any termination option:
The main concern with short leases is that the law allows the lease to exclude any termination option for the tenant.
Therefore, this basically means that the rent will have to be “paid in full.”
As a tenant, You should be aware of this before signing the lease.
Also very important is that a short-term lease should also be terminated in a timely manner by the party who wants to end it by the end date.
After all, if timely notice is not given, the lease will automatically renew and turn into a classic 9-year lease.
Therefore, we always recommend that the tenant and the landlord include the date by which notice must be given in their diaries to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Do you have questions about tenancy law?
As a tenancy law attorney we are happy to advise and assist you!
So contact us without obligation.
