WHSmith is a trusted high street retailer operating in the UK since 1982. As well as providing books, stationery and other convenience products, you can also purchase legal forms and templates. Below is a comparison, for modern-day landlords, of buying a WHSmith agreement and creating an AST agreement on Legislate.
Practicality
Paper templates are inefficient and impractical. As the world moves remote, the need for a wet signature is inconvenient for many people as it can often cause delays and waste time. Using a platform such as Legislate allows landlords to create a contract in minutes, invite parties to the platform, sign from anywhere in the world and download and print.
End-to-end contract management
Legislate allows you to streamline your processes. You can create, negotiate and sign contracts all in one place without a need for any other tools. It will enable landlords to control their properties with all their legal contracts in one place. Paper copy agreements are not secure due to the risk of loss, theft or fire.
Metrics and search
A contract management system like Legislate allows landlords to see key metrics such as how many contracts have been drafted, signed, and completed as well as property metrics like total rental income derived from the contracts. Paper copies or pdfs simply can’t facilitate this. You would have to manually extract information from these agreements and input it into a spreadsheet to track data.
Easy to use
A contracting platform like Legislate allows users to search the contract to find specific clauses. This is more practical as landlords and tenants can search the contract for particular clauses quickly and easily. The platform has an ‘Explain terms’ toggle, which provides users with an explanation of specific words. A WHSmith paper template makes it hard to search for particular clauses as you would be forced to read or scan the document with your eye. Furthermore, it doesn't explain the terms tenants or landlords may not understand.
Curious about automated data extraction from documents?
Price
The price for a WHSmith tenancy agreement is just under £10. Legislate offers a subscription starting from £25 per month (excluding VAT) for 5 properties. With this you can create the necessary documents related to letting out those 5 properties. This includes a Holding Deposit Form, Tenancy Application Form, AST, How to Rent Letter, Tenancy Amendment Letter, Section 21, Section 8, Notice to Quit and more. With all the features that Legislate offers, the value for money is arguably more with an end-to-end contract management platform like Legislate.
What to do next?
Legislate helps you create a lawyer-approved assured shorthold tenancy agreement and other documents in minutes on no legal budget. To get started, complete the following steps:
- Sign up to Legislate
- Select your plan
- Click on create a contract
- Select AST agreement from the list of available contracts
- Answer simple questions regarding your let
- Invite parties for signature
Once the parties have signed you have a legally binding agreement which can be stored on the platform along side other documentation relating to your tenancies.
About Legislate
Legislate’s AST agreements understand the differences between HMOs, bedsits and sole occupancy agreements. Users on Legislate are invited to create and negotiate contracts on their own terms, whilst being confident that their agreements are sensible and up to date. Read our tutorial to learn how to create your tenancy agreements in minutes with Legislate.
To start legislating today, book a demo or sign up.
The opinions on this page are for general information purposes only and do not constitute legal or financial advice on which you should rely.