So we are trying to rent a property in the same building we are currently in. In the last two months my husband has given his payslips, both of us have given reference letters from work, our passports, reference letters from other professionals. My husband has even gone as far as to have given commercial leases he has but the landlord is still not happy! I am feeling very insecure about this whole thing but the landlord just keeps asking for more and won’t come to a decision. What do we do? Oh and we have already given a deposit of £500 which he said he wouldn’t give back! Utterly disgraced
i hope you have a receipt for the £500. Why on earth did you give him money? Do you have a witness to this event?
1 Like
reference all of your data you have provided the landlord then please refer to the “ICO” and check if he is a “Data Controller” in the first instance.
Secondly, check what the deposit was for and what you signed etc, refer to a Tenants Deposit Scheme online for advise on this as it doesn’t sound above board.
Also “Shelter” online can advise you in better detail about all of your rights.
Also download the “How to Rent Guide” online from gov.uk website, easy guide.
Hi Hannah, was that £500 a holding deposit?
If the weekly rent is less than £500, then taking that money is now unlawful under the Tenant Fees Act. As an unpermitted payment, the landlord could be made to pay a fine of £5,000.
Perhaps this information will encourage the landlord to speed up their decision!
You can find a full guide to the new rules on holding deposits in this guide to the Tenant Fees Act.
Sam
Hi! No it isn’t less than £500 and the landlord took it as a ‘deposit’ whilst stating that he will give it back if it doesn’t go through. He has now also done referencing checks on me without asking for my permission. Surely this can’t be right?
No we don’t have a witness and my husband gave it. We have been getting dragged along for two months now and he has also taken the property off the market. He then sent a message stating that what we have provided is fine but is then doing more checks without my consent!
Hanna your giving him money to rent his place did you think he would not check up on you? 1you apply to rent 2 you give him money 3 he checks you out 4 hopefully you pass and get the place. You must have known he would do checks
Obviously we knew he would do checks but surely he needs our consent before he runs these? Not just do them and then tell us? Also the checks had already been carried out and we were told we would get the contract and now he’s changed his mind as he wants to do more. Colin have you read my post about what’s happened? Not trying to be rude but it feels like we are applying for a mortgage here not to rent.
ask him what the more checks are for and tell him you need to know within two weeks if you have the place or not and in the meantime book appointment with the citizens advice and get their advice
Hi Hannah, if the landlord has taken a holding deposit in excess of one week’s rent, then this is a prohibited payment. The local authority of the area the property is in will have a Trading Standards team who are respsonsible for enforcing the rules on this. You can report the payment to Trading Standards via the contact details on the council’s website.
In addition to payments over one week’s rent being prohibited, there are now rules around how long a landlord is allowed to hold the holding deposit.
Here’s an extract from the guide I posted before.
6. Repayment of Holding Deposits
Landlords will only be able to hold the holding deposit for 15 days unless another ‘deadline’ date is agreed in writing .
After the deadline, the holding deposit must be repaid within 7 days according to the above rules (see 5).
The holding deposit can be repaid to the tenant, or it can be put towards the rent or tenancy deposit.
I hope this info is helpful!
Sam
I personally have my own rules which are each and every transaction should be independent for any other transaction so if one is sent it can only be received for one singular thing such as rent can only equal rent not part of something else.
I adapted this role as I have been to many court hearings and done many trials myself as a litigant in person, I have further discovered that where a tenant can argue uncertainty arguments or give room for ambiguity towards their benefits than they do, so I much appreciate the rules laid out on the shelter website but I think there is too much room for ambiguity by using a holding deposit money and offsetting it against something else like the main deposit or the rent for instance as doing this is all good and well out of court yet when it comes to a court room and a bad tenant trust me this is not the way forward.
I am presently trying to adopt everything as airtight as possible to prevent further unnecessary court cases and one of which is drafting out the most amazing airtight inventory, so far a standard inventory is detailing about 80 pages as I’m trying to get absolutely everything in them as I have also discovered that part to be a great weakness simply not having a enough pictures or good enough pictures has just recently cost me well over £30,000 so now I try and paginate for the tenancy knowing that if I have a problem I don’t have to re-paginate for a court I just handover the existing inventory which already is paginated and is a winner in case anyone was wondering.
1 Like
As well as the amount of deposit taken being illegal, it’s also worth considering that they cannot withold it (due to a failed credit check for example) unless you had purposely hid information from them. Which you haven’t by the look of it. I think the landlord is pulling a fast one to con £500 out of you and am suspicious as to whether you’re not the only person going through the same thing with the same property. I really hope that you threaten the fine, get your money back then still report him, let him get his £5000 fine - then that’s one less bad landlord that will hopefully learn to play by the rules and stop ruining the reputation of good landlords.
Good luck with it.
Is he also the landlord of your current place/