Know Your Rights: What are the rights of a tenant under the Indian law?

It is often seen that several tenants in India are mistreated by their landlords in terms of contractual obligations including illegitimate or arbitrary rents.

Most of them become victims of landlords’ harassment. The tenants are always in a defensive position against their landlords as most of them not aware of the tenancy agreements in the country.

So as a tenant one should be cognizant of the type of lease agreements and here is some literature around the same. There are two types of agreements:

1. Lease agreement: It is an agreement which is covered by restrictive rent control laws. Under this, the amount of rent is derived by a formula built up by the legislative or judicial government.

For example: If you are living in Delhi, your maximum annual rent will be 10 per cent of the total cost of construction and the market place. But the actual cost of construction and the land price are based on the historical values and not the current market valuation.

2. Lease and License agreement: It is completely different from the lease agreement and here the agreement is wholly and solely based on the mutual understanding of the landlord and the tenant. Under this, the tenancy contract is only for the period of 11 months.

There are several instances across the country where the tenants are harassed by their landlords. Here are the rights that the tenants must be aware of:

# Right to have full information about the condition of the house

# Right to have a copy of the tenancy agreement

# Right to privacy: The landlord cannot walk into the house with prior intimation

# The landlord cannot disconnect essential services including electricity or water supply under any circumstances

# Right to reimbursement: The tenant is entitled to ask for reimbursement for any repairs in the rented house

# At the end of lease term, the landlord must return the deposit to the tenant