Glossary46 terms
Property, Rent and Construction Terms, Explained
The words nobody explains.
Every entry here is a term someone has had to ask us about: a self-builder handed a BQ with “provisional sum” on it, a tenant reading a deduction they can't check, a landlord asked to approve a sinking fund. No legal advice and no invented figures. Just what the instrument is, how it behaves, and what usually goes wrong with it.
Managing property
What a landlord, agency or caretaker has to be able to explain: how a charge was worked out, what a payment settled, and whose money is whose.
Service charge
service charges · levy · maintenance charge
A recurring amount paid by occupiers of a building towards the cost of running and maintaining the parts they share, separate from rent.
Sinking fund
reserve fund · capital reserve · replacement reserve
Money collected regularly from occupiers and held in reserve for large, infrequent expenditure such as a new lift, a roof or repainting the block, so that the cost does not fall as a single demand when it arrives.
Arrears ageing
aged arrears · ageing report · aged debtors
A report that groups outstanding balances by how long they have been outstanding, rather than showing a single total owed.
Payment allocation
payment application · matching payments · receipt allocation
The rule that decides which specific charges a payment settles when it does not exactly match a single invoice.
Unallocated payment
suspense · unidentified receipt · unapplied cash
Money that has genuinely been received but cannot yet be attributed to a specific tenancy or charge, held in a visible queue until it is identified rather than guessed onto an account.
Landlord remittance
landlord payout · owner remittance · landlord statement
The periodic payment an agency makes to a property owner, being rent collected on their behalf less agreed deductions, accompanied by a statement showing how the figure was derived.
Client account
client money · trust account · segregated account
A bank account holding money that belongs to somebody else, such as tenants' deposits and landlords' collections, kept separate from the agency's own working funds.
Double-entry ledger
double entry bookkeeping · general ledger · the books
A method of recording every transaction as two equal and opposite entries, so that the accounts must balance and an error has somewhere to show itself.
Billing run
rent run · monthly billing · invoice run
The periodic process of raising a period's charges against every active tenancy in a portfolio at once, covering rent, utilities and recurring items, and issuing them together.
Pro-rata rent
prorated rent · part-period rent · apportioned rent
Rent charged for part of a rental period, calculated by apportioning the full period's rent across the days actually occupied.
Rent review
rent increase · rent escalation · escalation clause
The mechanism in a tenancy agreement by which rent changes during or at the end of the term, on a stated basis and with stated notice.
Management agreement
letting and management agreement · agency agreement · managing agent agreement
The contract between a property owner and a managing agent setting out what the agent will do, what authority they have, what they are paid, and what happens when the arrangement ends.
Rental yield
gross yield · net yield · yield
The annual rental income from a property expressed as a percentage of its value or purchase price, stated either gross, before costs, or net, after them.
Vacancy rate
void rate · voids · occupancy rate
The proportion of a portfolio's units, or of its potential rental income, that is unlet over a period, measured either by unit count or by the rent foregone.
Renting a home
The words in your tenancy agreement, the ones in the deduction statement, and the ones that decide whether you get your deposit back.
Security deposit
deposit · rent deposit · damage deposit
A sum paid by a tenant at the start of a tenancy, held by the landlord or agent as security against unpaid rent and damage beyond fair wear and tear, and refundable at the end to the extent it is not properly applied.
Schedule of condition
inventory · check-in inventory · condition report
A dated record of the state of a property and its contents at the start of a tenancy, agreed by both sides, against which the condition at the end is compared.
Tenancy agreement
lease · lease agreement · rental agreement
The contract between landlord and tenant setting out the terms on which a property is occupied, covering rent, duration, notice, obligations and what happens when things go wrong.
Notice period
notice to vacate · notice to quit · giving notice
The amount of advance warning one party to a tenancy must give the other before ending it or changing its terms, and the form that warning must take.
Fair wear and tear
wear and tear · normal wear · reasonable wear and tear
The deterioration a property suffers from ordinary use over time, which a tenant is not liable to make good and which cannot properly be deducted from a deposit.
Sub-metering
submeter · sub meter · tenant metering
Measuring each unit's own water or electricity consumption from a meter downstream of the main utility meter, so occupiers are billed for what they individually used.
Quiet enjoyment
covenant for quiet enjoyment · peaceful enjoyment · right to occupy undisturbed
The tenant's right to possess and use the property without substantial interference from the landlord or anyone claiming through them, which is implied into a tenancy even where the agreement does not mention it.
Distress for rent
levying distress · distraint · proclamation
A statutory process by which a landlord may, through a licensed agent and following a defined procedure, seize and sell a tenant's goods on the premises to recover rent that is in arrears.
Subletting
sublet · sub-letting · sublease
A tenant granting someone else the right to occupy all or part of the property, creating a subtenancy under the head tenancy while the original tenant remains liable to the landlord.
Controlled tenancy
protected tenancy · statutory tenancy · Cap 301 tenancy
A tenancy that falls under a statutory regime restricting how it may be ended or its terms changed, and providing a tribunal route where the parties disagree, rather than leaving the matter entirely to the agreement.
Building
The documents a self-builder is handed without explanation, and the mechanisms by which a contract sum quietly stops being the price.
Bill of quantities
BQ · BOQ · bills of quantities
A measured, itemised list of everything a building project requires, with a quantity against each item, so that several contractors can price the same scope and be compared like for like.
Preliminaries
prelims · preliminary items · general items
The section of a construction bill covering the cost of running the site rather than building any part of it: set-up, temporary works, supervision, insurance, site water and power, and securing the works.
Provisional sum
PS · provisional sums
An allowance in a bill of quantities for work that is known to be needed but cannot yet be measured or specified precisely, to be adjusted to the actual cost once it can.
Prime cost sum
PC sum · prime cost · PC rate
An allowance in a construction bill for goods to be supplied by a nominated supplier, where the item itself has not yet been chosen, adjusted to the actual cost once it is.
Contract sum
contract price · agreed sum · adjusted contract sum
The price agreed for the works at the point the building contract is signed, which is a starting figure rather than a final one, and which moves by a defined mechanism as variations and allowances are adjusted.
Variation order
VO · change order · site instruction
A documented instruction to change the scope of construction works after the contract is signed, carrying its own cost and time consequence.
Goods received note
GRN · goods receipt · receiving note
A record made at the point of delivery by the receiving side, stating what actually arrived on site, checked against what was ordered and what the supplier invoiced.
Interim payment certificate
IPC · interim certificate · payment certificate
A document issued periodically during construction certifying the value of work properly executed to date, against which a stage payment becomes due.
Retention
retention money · retainage · retention sum
A percentage of each payment withheld from the contractor during construction and released in stages, as security that the works will be completed and defects made good.
Practical completion
PC · substantial completion · handover
The point at which the works are complete enough for the employer to occupy and use them for their intended purpose, even though minor items may remain outstanding.
Defects liability period
DLP · defects period · rectification period
A period after practical completion during which the contractor is obliged to return and make good defects that appear in the completed works.
Final account
final statement · settlement of account · final valuation
The concluding statement of a construction contract, setting out the contract sum as adjusted by every variation, allowance and claim, and establishing the final amount payable.
Liquidated damages
LDs · LADs · liquidated and ascertained damages
A sum stated in a building contract, payable by the contractor for each period of delay beyond the completion date, fixed in advance as a genuine pre-estimate of the employer's loss.
Land and buying
What a search does and does not tell you, what sits on a title, and the consents a transaction is not valid without.
Land search
official search · title search · searching a title
An official enquiry at the lands registry that returns the current registered particulars of a parcel, including who is registered as proprietor, the tenure, and any encumbrances noted against it.
Title deed
title · certificate of title · certificate of lease
The document issued by the lands registry evidencing a registered interest in a parcel of land, naming the proprietor, the parcel and the tenure.
Encumbrance
charge · caveat · caution
Any right or interest registered against a property that limits the owner's ability to deal with it freely, most commonly a bank charge, but also cautions, caveats and restrictions.
Freehold and leasehold
freehold · leasehold · tenure
The two principal forms of land tenure: freehold is ownership without a time limit; leasehold is ownership for a defined term of years, after which the interest reverts unless extended or renewed.
Beacons and survey
beacons · boundary survey · deed plan
The physical markers defining a parcel's boundaries on the ground, and the surveyor's exercise of confirming that what is on the ground matches the deed plan held at the registry.
Land rates and land rent
rates · ground rent · county rates
Two separate recurring charges on land in Kenya: land rates, levied by the county on the property, and land rent, payable to the lessor on leasehold titles, both of which must generally be cleared before a transfer can proceed.
Consent to transfer
land control board consent · LCB consent · consent to transfer land
Permission required from a specified authority or party before a dealing in certain categories of land is valid, most commonly for agricultural land and for leasehold titles where the lease requires the lessor's approval.
Sectional title
sectional properties · apartment title · unit title
A form of ownership in a multi-unit development where a buyer holds title to their own unit and an undivided share of the common property, with the shared parts managed collectively.
Stamp duty
duty · transfer duty · stamping
A tax payable on certain instruments, including a transfer of land, assessed on the value of the property and required before the instrument can be registered.