Please do not take any offence of this message. I am a consultant by profession and my work is to make life easier for everyone and I get paid for it.
I am just sharing my thoughts below for the Open Rent Management Team to understand:
To make life easier for landlord- maximising the hits is important as the landlords who are at open rent are screening their tenants (unlike an estate agent) and I prefer that. Maximising the hits is only helping them choose the right tenant to their needs. My property is a 3 bedroom house without a HMO licence and I do not want to house 5 residents
To make life easier for tenants is giving them flexibility with one click option to connect to landlord or the choice for them to fill the form. I asked specific questions to some of my tenant enquiries and did not get a response. The next thing was I called them and spoke to them. But by putting the restriction, I cannot connect to the tenant as I am not getting their enquiry and I loose the ability to proactively connect with them.
My property got so many hits from individuals who are running property investment business and want to take the property and then sublet it. I consumed my initial 30 limit with property invesment firms and this is wrongly seen by the openrent team as 30 hits by prospective tenants.
I feel many estate agents or property firms are generating these queries on the new listings so that the platform becomes restrictive and then the landlord goes to estate agents as he is not able to get the interest on the listing after 30 hits
I think the promotors of the site thought about the word āOpennessā and gave platform the name āOpenrentā allowing people to connect freely and not have restrictive practice. By restricting the tenants and landlords to connect, I think the motive behind the platform is lost.
If for some reason (that I cannot think) - Open rent is still wanting to collect information from the tenants and not allow enquiries to be sent directly to landlord, then the message to the prospective tenant should not read āLandlord has enabled advanced screeningā. As this is a wrong message to the tenants as I have not enabled any extra screening and I do not want this.
It is important to let the prospective tenants know that this property has generated high interests and hence openrent is asking for this data to be filled in. The tenants do not understand if the landlord is screening or Open rent team is screening. So this is not correct on the face of it.
My property is not having an HMO and I have to ensure who all will be staying in case there are sharers and if they have a family relation. I need to be sure else I will be fined heavily and this needs a lot of conversations with the enquiries.
I have replied to all the enquiries either by making a phone call to them or by contacting them on the portal. So i do not understand why I am being penalised with default screening of enquiries. In case your cost is a factor of the messages that are generated then you can stop sending me messages as I check the portal every hour.
I hope my feedback is taken to the decision makers of the platform who can understand the underlying concerns of the landlords who choose to use Open Rent.
There has been no response to my content written and posted on the blog as well in the email.
On your portal there is no method of escalation to your customer service department/ team
There is no mention of complaints process anywhere in the portal
I have not seen any mention in your terms and conditions or on any page where Open rent has mentioned about āDefault screeningā and limiting the enquiries after a count of 30 and following a selective practice towards some properties.
I really need a reply to my email to the concerns/ queries added here.
Vikas1 this is a great post however you will need to be patient in getting a response. The other day I posted a response in another thread that needed moderation. It took several daysā¹ļø
Openrent say this in their own help section on website
ā## Pre-screening
Screening can be activated from your enquiries page, by clicking on Tenant Screening Options. We also activate it automatically on properties which receive a very large amount of interest in a short period of time.
Does it put applicants off?
In our experience it only puts off enquiries that arenāt suitable for your property.
If youāre concerned that some tenants may be being put off by the screening system, you can simply relax the criteria on your listing edit page. E.g. if instance you set the advert to no pets you can change this instantly on the edit page.ā
Hi Chris and markā¦If it is default screeningā¦the message to the tenant should NOT say - that landlord wants a screening. That is a serious mis-statement from Open Rent.
I am listing the property - it should be my option and seriously when I have paid a fee for the service, then I should be allowed visibility of every click from a prospective tenant and the ability to connect with them. Communication is a skill and is not easy to master.
So please - eith remove the default screening or correct the message displayed to the tenant.
Vikas, it isnāt serious at all. Serious tenants just fill in the screening questions. It takes seconds. Iāve used this site for several years. It works.
Although your opinion is as valid as everyone elseās, itās fair to say that your reactions on previous threads are a little dramatic, and premature. Labelling openrent as being fraudulent without actually understanding things and being highly critical of them, even though the fault was your own doing.
Openrent have existed since 2012 and they know what they are doing, and doing pretty well.
You are one person with one opinion. Openrent implement, test, measure and then measure some more. They have over a decade of data to know what does and what doesnāt work and the reasons why. No system is perfect of course.
You agreed to its terms when you signed up yet do nothing but criticise them within minutes without having had time or experience to understand it.
Being so quickly critical as you are on a public forum doesnāt show reasonable behaviour on your part.
Mark- Sorry you have failed to understand
a) I know the positive side of Open Rent and that is the reason I am here discussing and investing time
b) Open Rent or similar platform gives me the freedom to choose my tenant and I want them to have success
c) Why you think a mis-statement on a public domain is acceptable and specially when it is misleading. I am happy if Open Rent uses right words.
d) Having no complaints process - so should one go to Ombudsman directly is what you are suggesting as I do not see why Open Rent team is not acknowleging their mistake and correcting it. Working for a decade and then making a gross error does not discount the error.
e) I know what I am asking for and what I have paid for- If Open Rent is not able to correct the stand then they should refund as they are in breach of the contract by making the mis-statement that I am referring to.
I hope you understand the point and not try to argue on the seriousness as the consequencial damages are high in this case.
So you want a refund on the basis that there is a message that states the landlord has turned on screening, whereas it was automatically turned on if there are large number of applications in a short amount of time?
How is this breach of contract? Why is it such a huge problem? Itās a little annoying yes, but does it really change anything negatively for the landlord? - can you explain how?
It is not about openrent harvesting data, this is simply another method used to ensure landlords manage responses and reply within a timely manner. Being overrun with applicants clearly causes reply issues for a significant number of landlords, hence its introduction.
Where have I suggested going to Ombudsman? Have you contacted openrent through their recommended channels? This is a forum for tenants and landlord discussions and OR staff only monitor and reply very sporadically and cannot be relied upon.
I have sent many emails - to raise my complaint and give me a reference number and Open Rent has declined to register and sort my complaint for more than 10 days giving me lot of stress and sleepless nights.
You being staff are so negative to even understand - that I have problem with the mis-statement being negative. All that was suggested was to make the positive statement (which is the right fact) that Open rent is having default screening on due to high interest (and not a requirement from the landlord).
You being an employee of Open rent and having engaged with you - I am left with no option but to progress with Ombudsman since you have not taken any responsibility in the capacity of an employee when you were fully aware of what was being requested from my end.
Here, letās me clarify some more things for youā¦.
Thereās a common thing happening hereā¦.you dont actually reply to any questions or statements that explain your misunderstandings and the reasons why things work the way they do. Or at least just to try to have a vaguely intellingent discussion. (About a system that has industry experts who develop and run it.)
No reply to my question to try to understand your actual concern with screening and how it causes any real problems?
You like to make a noise and expect everyone to jump, sadly this isnāt how things work either.
All this time you have spent worrying and concerns over grammar and self created problems with adverts being suspended due to your failure to respond to enquiries you could have instead used a lettings agent and avoided this horrible torturous headache. (Though sadly inflicting torture on the agent instead).
Come to think of it, I too might report openrent as I am still waiting for my employment contract, strange I donāt remember agreeing to ever work for them. They must owe me a fortune!
I hope you have a good solicitor incase you ever need to defend your public unfounded slanderous accusations of fraud.
