Hi @Omar18 -
On the question of your specific deposit:
Firstly, sorry to hear you’ve been surprised by this change, even with our warnings, it can be hard to get this right. For landlords who have used our old system, and now moved onto our new system, they are presented with:
As well as:
There is no cover up here, and everything is extremely transparent, in line with our core values.
Secondly, sorry to hear your responses so far have been less helpful than I’d expect. As I said to the only other landlord that has raised this (that I’m aware of) we’re happy to release the deposit where possible. We are at the mercy of the schemes, and the law, but we have no desire to hold a deposit where it’s not wanted. The cost of doing so makes it quite undesirable.
I’ll have someone from the team reach out directly and rectify the situation as best we can.
On the more general claims being made:
Now, if you have a few moments, I’d like to dispel some myths and misinformation from your posts. To do that, I’ll start by outlining the history of deposits on OpenRent.
Originally, we partnered with the DPS custodial scheme. This process was entirely manual. We had an agent login, and would have to manually enter deposit information into their website for every new tenancy. Much like many landlords and agents across the country. As some of you will have experienced, this is laborious and error prone. It also introduces delays in the deposit registration process. As a custodial scheme, there was no fee for doing this to us or to landlords or tenants.
Initially we wrote software to automate interacting with the DPS website, this solved some of the problems above, but wasn’t ever sustainable or desirable. The DPS had no API we could use.
When MyDeposits came along with their API for their custodial scheme, we went all in and switched providers, integrated with them, and helped landlords migrate over from the DPS if they wished to do so. Not many did. Some landlords shouted loudly about MyDeposits being worse. Some shouted loudly about them being better. 99% of landlords didn’t really seem to care, but we put in a lot of work because it was better for all parties as we’d removed the chance of human error, and we could register deposits instantly (once the LL had an account) speeding up the whole process. Again, as a custodial scheme, there was no fee with MyDeposits either.
But there remained several issues:
- A landlord had to set up a MyDeposits account. This was unfortunately much more error prone than expected. We had MyDeposits support team on speed dial, and very regularly had to put landlords in touch with their support to solve problems.
- Landlords had to use MyDeposits to release deposits / claims deposits. We didn’t have the information to help them, as the deposit sat in the landlords account. The MyDeposits site (and rebrand) often suffered from major issues that we could do nothing about.
- These problems were also true of the DPS, so we couldn’t just switch back.
This was a problem for us. Landlords blamed OpenRent for things outside our control, and tenancies would be delayed in starting or ending, and we couldn’t help. We were at the mercy of a third party, whether that is MyDeposits or the DPS, and every issue on their side would result in days and weeks of delays for the affected tenancies. This wasn’t good enough, and whilst we could blame the deposit providers, we know our landlords and tenants expected better.
At this point we realised the only solution was to bring the whole process in house, which is where we are today. Landlords on OpenRent no longer need an account with a 3rd party, or to deal with a 3rd party. Their deposits are securely and legally protected, and both landlords and tenants have visibility and confidence in the deposit status. This is a marked improvement for all the landlords and tenants who were complaining with the previous two systems.
Getting to this point has taken a huge investment from our team, and has ongoing costs. We now need to pay a fee for every deposit registered (this wasn’t the case with the custodial schemes), we need all money to be ring-fenced in designated client accounts and pay for client money protection insurance. We don’t pass on any of these fees to landlords or tenants and the deposit registration services remains included within Rent Now. The cost and complexity to us is worth it, because our product is better. Much like our previous investment to switch to the MyDeposits Custodial scheme, a better product is what drives change at OpenRent.
No Deposit Schemes
Your references to “no deposit” / “alternative deposit” / “Reposit” (which is a brand) are quite different / tangential to an insured deposit or custodial deposit. That is something built due to request and demand from tenants, because some tenants seem to prefer it and there are upsides to landlords. But it is a choice and you can turn it off. Obviously it’s hard to get the UX here perfect, the best we can do is have the option for landlords against it. On the tenant side, they need to have all passed referencing, and then need to opt in and it’s considered an “advanced option”. This is to make sure it’s something the tenant really wants.
We discuss this in detail here on our blog and in our help centre.
We’re trying to give tenants and landlords options, whilst hiding away the complexity, so everyone ultimately is satisfied whatever their preferences or requirements. But the option has always sat alongside a standard tenancy deposit (whether with the DPS or MyDeposits, or insured / custodial) as a choice for both tenants and landlords.
Wrap up:
Whilst clearly you are extremely passionate about your deposit placement preferences, it’s worth noting that for the most part landlords see this as a legal obligation and burden. The simpler we can make the process, the better. We’ve accomplished that aim, at significant cost, because Rent Now is intended to be the best way for a landlord to set up a tenancy.
Not everything we do works for everyone. Some people are resistant to change (as we saw in the DPS → MyDeposits transition). But the latest change has been hugely positive for the vast majority of landlords.
As I said at the start, if you’re not happy with the new streamlined set up, then we’ll do our best to release the deposit to a different provider. But this is a rare request, and not something our support team are used to dealing with, not something MyDeposits are particularly set up for, which is unfortunately why it’s not been as smooth as both you and I would like. So please do work with us, rather than against us, whilst we support you here.
Hopefully it’s clear from above why we we’ve made the choices we have, and built the product as we have. Hopefully that clears up any myths or confusion about what OpenRent’s objectives are. And of course, if you’re not happy, we have no desire to lock you in as you claim. You can unwind an entire tenancy and delete your account should you so wish.
