How Do Landlords Create a Tenancy Agreement?
What it should include, and whether you actually need a lawyer.
Direct answer: Landlords create a tenancy agreement by hiring a lawyer to draft one, adapting a template themselves, or using software that generates one automatically from the lease's own details - the tenant's name, rent amount, property, and lease dates. A proper agreement should cover the rent amount and due date, the lease term, deposit terms, who's responsible for which repairs, and what happens if either side wants to end it early. You don't strictly need a lawyer for a standard residential tenancy, though it's worth having one review anything unusual.
Why a Written Agreement Matters
A verbal understanding works fine right up until it doesn't - the moment there's a disagreement about the rent amount, who pays for a repair, or when the lease actually ends, a written agreement is what settles it instead of two people arguing about who remembers correctly. This matters just as much for a landlord with one tenant as one with fifty; the stakes per tenant don't get smaller just because the portfolio is small.
What a Tenancy Agreement Should Include
At minimum: the full names of landlord and tenant, the property and unit, the rent amount and how often it's due, the lease start and end dates, the deposit amount and what it can be used for, who's responsible for which repairs and maintenance, and the notice period required to end the tenancy from either side. Anything specific to your property - no subletting, a pet policy, shared-space rules - belongs in writing too, not left as an assumed understanding.
Do You Need a Lawyer?
For a standard residential tenancy with normal terms, most landlords in Nigeria use a template or a document their letting process already generates, without paying a lawyer to draft one from scratch each time. Where a lawyer earns their fee is anything unusual - a commercial lease, an especially long term, a tenant negotiating non-standard clauses - situations where a mistake in the wording could actually matter later. For the common case, the priority is making sure the document is complete and specific, not that it was written by a lawyer.
If You Already Have Tenants Without a Written Agreement
This is more common than most landlords admit - a tenant moved in on a verbal understanding, months or years ago, and no formal document was ever signed. It's worth fixing even after the fact: put the actual terms you've been operating under in writing, get the tenant to sign it, and treat it as the agreement going forward from that date. It won't cover anything that happened before it was signed, but it closes the gap for everything after, which is the part you can still control.
How Domby Helps
Domby generates a tenancy agreement automatically from the lease details you've already entered for a tenant - names, property, rent amount, and dates - so you're not filling out the same information twice or starting from a blank template each time. It's stored against that tenant's record, alongside their payment history and lease dates, so there's one place to find it later instead of searching through email attachments or a folder on your computer. This is a Pro plan feature.
FAQ
Nigerian tenancy law varies by state, and a written agreement is strongly advisable even where not strictly mandated, since it's the clearest evidence of what both sides agreed to if a dispute ever comes up.
Yes, for the parts that don't change - structure, standard clauses, notice periods - but the tenant-specific details (names, rent, dates, unit) need to be accurate for each one individually, which is exactly what generating it from the lease's own record avoids getting wrong.
Don't hand over the property or accept rent without a signed agreement in place - it's the one document protecting you if anything goes wrong later, and a tenant unwilling to sign a reasonable one is worth treating as a warning sign.
Requirements vary by state and by the specifics of the tenancy, so it's worth checking locally for anything unusual - but for a standard residential agreement, a signed document from both parties is generally the baseline that matters most in practice.
Related guides
See how landlords renew a lease and how landlords end a lease agreement for what happens after the agreement is signed, and the full landlord rent collection guide for the process this fits into. Want a starting point? Copy the free tenancy agreement template, and read how to screen a tenant before you sign one with them. For the deposit and fee side, read what fees and deposits a landlord can charge in Nigeria and what service charge covers and who pays it. Once it's signed, see how to track lease start and end dates. Browse all landlord guides.
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