The landlord should produce a lease for you to sign. You should ask to have it drawn up in advance and sent to you ,. or to your solicitor.
It should be checked carefully.
From a post on here, and from my own experience, you should check the actual lease very carefully before signing. You should be familiar with the draft, and make notes as to where the important info is, (rent, lease length, other important stuff),.. and confirm that this is correct, in the actual lease, BEFORE signing. You should compare each page of the draft, with each page of the actual lease.,.. taking as long as is necessary to compare correctly. Don't be rushed. I have seen attempts at fast ones here... eg. the lease length being changed...
Both copies of the lease should obviously be identical. i.e yours and his.
If you are dealing with an agent,.. and not the person named on the lease as the landlord then really you need a separate document stating that the agent has the authority to sign on behalf of the named landlord.
In my view the lease should have page numbers, and a contents sheet detailing the number of pages,.. this prevents extra pages being claimed later as having always been part of the lease. In the absence of page numbers and content sheets then each page should be signed. (in my opinion)