Corporate Lets for Landlords

A corporate let is a tenancy granted to a company, rather than to an individual, which then places its own employees or contractors in the property. It is common in relocation, contractor housing, and guaranteed-rent management arrangements, where a business wants a consistent, professional presence in a property market and is willing to pay for that certainty. It is a genuinely different legal arrangement from an ordinary assured shorthold tenancy, not just a variant of one, and treating it as a normal residential letting with a company's name typed into the tenant box is one of the more common and avoidable mistakes landlords make.

This guide covers what actually makes a corporate let different, why landlords use them, and the practical steps that keep the arrangement working as intended.

Why it is legally different

Under the Housing Act 1988, an assured tenancy, and therefore an assured shorthold tenancy, can only be granted to an individual. A company cannot hold one. A tenancy granted to a limited company is instead a non-assured, contractual tenancy governed by ordinary contract law rather than the residential tenancy framework.

This matters more than it might first appear, because it means the Renters' Rights Act 2025 reforms, the abolition of Section 21, the conversion to Assured Periodic Tenancies, the pet request right, the rent increase process, all apply specifically to assured tenancies. A genuine company let generally sits outside that framework. It ends according to the terms written into the contract itself, whether that is a fixed term expiring or a break clause being exercised, without needing a Section 8 ground or court possession proceedings in the way an assured tenancy would, provided the company itself is the one giving up the property.

Where it gets more complicated is if an individual occupier placed in the property by the company later claims some form of protected occupation status in their own right, for example if the arrangement in practice looks more like a sub-letting to that individual than a genuine corporate tenancy. This is a real legal risk area, not a theoretical one, and it is a good reason to have any corporate let agreement properly drafted rather than adapted from a standard AST template.

Why landlords consider it

The appeal of a corporate let is usually some combination of:

• Rent paid by the company regardless of whether an individual is actually living there, in guaranteed-rent style arrangements, which removes void risk from the landlord's side of the equation.
• A single point of contact for rent and communication, rather than dealing with rotating individual occupiers directly.
• A professional counterparty, at least in principle, which can mean fewer of the day-to-day disputes that come with an individual tenancy.

The trade-off is usually rent. Guaranteed-rent corporate arrangements typically pay somewhat below full open-market rent achievable through individual lettings, in exchange for the reduced void risk and management burden. Whether that trade is worth it depends on your local void rates and how much you value the hands-off arrangement, a comparison our buy-to-let costs checklist can help you run properly.

A worked example illustrates the trade-off. A two-bedroom flat that would let for £1,400 a month on the open market is instead offered to a relocation management company on a guaranteed-rent basis at £1,250 a month. Over a year with no voids, the company arrangement brings in £15,000. If the same flat let on the open market instead sat empty for six weeks between tenancies, a realistic outcome in a slower local market, the open-market income falls to roughly £14,700 once the void is accounted for, before adding in the extra time spent re-advertising and referencing each new tenant. In a strong rental market with low void risk, the comparison tips the other way, and the guaranteed-rent discount is harder to justify. Running the actual numbers for your specific property and local market, rather than assuming either route is automatically better, is the only reliable way to decide.

Setting it up correctly

• Use a proper company let agreement, not a standard AST template with the tenant's name changed to a company name. The wording, obligations and possession terms need to reflect a non-assured, contractual tenancy from the outset.
• Name the company correctly, including its registered company number and registered office, so there is no ambiguity later about who the actual tenant is.
• Check the company's financial standing, using a company credit check and recent filed accounts from Companies House, in the same way you would reference an individual tenant's income and credit history.
• Consider a personal guarantee from a director, since a company can be wound up or become insolvent, potentially leaving no one to pursue for unpaid rent if the company itself has no assets left.
• Check your mortgage lender's consent to let terms and your buildings insurance policy, since some buy-to-let mortgage conditions and standard landlord insurance policies assume an individual AST tenant and may need to be varied or confirmed before you offer the property as a company let.

Right to rent and deposits

Right to rent checks, covered in our guide to right to rent checks, are built around the concept of an individual occupier and are generally treated differently where the tenant is a body corporate rather than a person. That does not mean immigration status stops mattering to you as a matter of good practice; it means the statutory mechanics work differently, so check current GOV.UK guidance for how the scheme applies to your specific arrangement rather than assuming the individual-tenant process applies unchanged.

Similarly, the statutory tenancy deposit protection rules are built around assured shorthold tenancies. Many landlords still take and document a deposit under the terms of the company let contract itself as a matter of good commercial practice, even though the statutory scheme may not apply in the same way, so make sure your agreement sets out clearly how any deposit is held and returned.

Risks to manage

• Not knowing who is actually occupying the property, since the company, not you, usually controls who moves in and out. Ask for this to be confirmed in writing as a condition of the agreement.
• Company insolvency, which is why checking financial standing and considering a director's guarantee matters more here than for many individual tenancies.
• Arrangements that are not genuinely corporate, where a management company presents itself as the tenant but the substance of the arrangement looks more like an individual assured tenancy in disguise. Ask to see the actual signed agreement, and have it reviewed, before treating an arrangement as fully outside the assured tenancy framework.

How Property HQ helps

Property HQ keeps your company let agreements, guarantee documents and financial checks alongside the rest of your property records, so the paperwork that makes a corporate let genuinely different from a standard tenancy is easy to find when you need to rely on it.

Disclaimer

This guide is general information for UK landlords, not legal advice. Whether a specific arrangement is genuinely a non-assured company let, and how the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and related rules apply to it, depends on the facts and the drafting. Have any company let agreement reviewed by a solicitor before signing.