The documents around a letting, prepared properly, whether or not we found the tenant.
2,000 rufiyaa for a tenancy agreement, inventory and handover pack on a flat we did not let. Included free on anything we did.
A tenancy here is often agreed on a phone call and confirmed by a transfer, and then twelve months later two reasonable people disagree about what was said. So the pack is deliberately dull and complete: the rent and the day of the month it is due, the term and how either side ends it, the deposit and what may be taken from it, the number of months paid in advance and a receipt for them, who pays for what repair, how water and electricity are metered and who reads them, what furniture is included, and whether the flat may be shared or sublet.
We write it in Dhivehi and in English, side by side, and we say which version governs if they ever disagree. A tenant signing a document in a language they read only partly is not really agreeing to it, and we would rather spend the extra hour.
The inventory is photographs and a list, signed on the day, including the state of the bathrooms and any mark on a wall that already exists. This single sheet of paper prevents almost every deposit argument we have ever seen.
Meter readings get written down and signed by both sides at handover and again at the end. Where a flat pays a share of a building meter we write the share and the method down, because a share that was never defined is a dispute waiting for a hot month.
And every payment gets a receipt in the landlord's name, on the day, whether it came in cash or by transfer. Advances here are frequently paid in cash and the receipt is the only record that will exist.