Holding deposit, then silence. Where do I stand?

Landlord Discussion
22

@tatemono its how Openrent RentNow works. There is no option if the Landlord is using RentNow.

Personally, I feel RentNow provides great convenience, and ease of administration, and for this reason I choose to use it.

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23

One way is to deal with the financials yourself, I keep control of what happens to my properties this way.

24

@tatemono

(Am not answering for @Bruce obviously)

Suppose a tenant does mess around even for 2 days and they choose to withdraw the application. Then you as LL get to keep the holding deposit.

Itā€™s meant to signify some sort of commitment from tenant and potentially claimable by LL if they do waste LL time or lie in their application. It means tenants have an incentive to get on with providing refs in a timely way etc. With no holding deposits tenants could make as many offers as they like and only make a commitment to a single place by signing after lots of different LLs have referenced them. So LLs could then be wasting a lot of time and effort inc paying for unnecessary referencing.

@Bruce chose to make a quick decision to avoid being messed about in this case but sometimes maybe we LLs get it wrong and give time wasters the benefit of the doubt and they still mess us about, lie etc in which case being able to get a weeks rent for the hassle would be some compensation

Thereā€™s also a benefit for the good tenants - they give a holding deposit and in return LLs canā€™t keep advertising to others. This gives them more confidence the LL is serious too and not messing them about.

Appreciate itā€™s not for everyone- maybe some people are less trusting or have better bullsh*t detectors from long experience and donā€™t need to bother with any protection from timewasting liars, just like some people will trust their judgment and not bother with rent gtee or landlord insurance.

Best

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25

If referencing is the last box to tick in your selection process, you very rarely waste money on it. I donā€™t see how taking the property off the market while you reference applicants who you donā€™t know from Adam is of benefit. Unless I suppose, you require them to pay a holding deposit when youā€™ve done all other due diligence and already know that theyā€™ll pass. Still not convinced of the benefits if you get your ducks in a row in the application process.

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26

Hi, I faced a similar challenge. Unfortunately OR policy on holding deposits fully favours the tenant than the LL IMHO. If you want to relet , you have to return the holding deposit and you might retain the referencing credit if Iā€™m not mistaken. Your call on whether to wait or cut your losses and re-let. But I donā€™t think OR will let you keep the HD for the hassle or lost opportunity or a new void period owing to this- unfortunately. All the best

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27

If it were me Iā€™d just refund the holding deposit and move on. You are entitled to keep it but the problem is that it will probably delay getting back to market.

If they are not engaging with you then theyā€™re probably not engaged with the reference process so you may get a refund.

I canā€™t see a week being a deal breaker. If it were they should have said.

Sound flaky to me. Maybe better with someone else

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