I had a tenancy renewal at the end of October, and new tenants swapped in for 3 previous tenants (not the lead tenant). The lead tenant agreed to charges being removed from the deposit, however the old tenants did not agree and are looking to bring legal action to recover these deductions. They are also claiming that the deposit names changed on the 14th October (when the new tenancy agreement was signed) even though the contract did not end until the 31st October - this was an automatic action by Open Rent and not my request. I am happy to bring a swift end to these discussions and return the deposit, but now their solicitor is asking for costs and 1 x the deposit as compensation, even though this has always been protected by My Deposits and I have never touched it. Any guidance is appreciated.
You cant just swap tenants and assume its the same tenancy and deposit. You either have to use a deed of assignment or end the tenancy and create a new one. Either way you have to refund the deposit, (less any deductions) and take a new deposit from the new group, otherwise you get into a real mess. You may now need legal advice from a specialist housing lawyer.
Appreciate the response. I have followed the process as described on the Open Rent website and also as detailed by My Deposits. It baffles me that they would provide this guidance if it wasn’t allowed. I reached out to Open Rent and they have provided zero help, whilst My Deposit claim that this is a civil matter between the new and old tenants.
That’s link for tenancy renewal, or to give them their proper title, replacement tenancies. This is essentially a new tenancy when the old one ends, with no gap and no change of tenant, property or terms, apart from rent. I am not familiar with RentNow, but its possible that it adjusts the process if you try to change one of those things, but I would think that it would tell you what it was doing. If you swap tenants, its a completely different tenancy and it would have a find a way to assign or end the old tenancy. I think you’re going to need more help from Openrent in the first instance on exactly what you did. @Daz are you able to help Nicholas9?
Yep, the first link seems like what you have followed, which explains the process for the deposit in a linked article (depending on which scheme was being used), which has a full guide here:
This includes contact details for MyDeposits in the event of a dispute so they can support. Otherwise we simply notify MyDeposits of the renewal that is happening (in accordance with their guidelines and the law), but as the deposit sits with them, we can’t actually action anything / control the funds.
Where a lead tenant has agreed to deductions, and then their co-tenants have disagreed, I believe this is something to discuss with MyDeposits. But the lead tenant is normally nominated to make such decisions on the deposit, and if you have this in writing, then I imagine it will make the process straight forward for MyDeposits to handle. Their claim for costs and 1x deposit appear frivolous, given all processes have been followed in accordance with the AST, MyDeposits, and compliance of the nominated lead tenant - so I’m surprised to hear that. If anything, it sounds like they should be taking issue with their lead tenant. Genuinly sorry to hear you’ve run into such difficult / litigious tenants, but am confident MyDeposits dispute resolution will be able to resolve swiftly.
If you run into further issues, do let us know here and our legal team can support, given by the sounds of it everything was processed correctly.
For tenancies set up on OpenRent after March 2024, where we control the funds directly, there are much more tightly grained controls over how the funds are treated and a process on-platform for any disputes. Whilst I appreciate that doesn’t help in this case, hopefully it’s helpful to know for the future.
The issue they claim is that the renewal automatically removed their names from the tenancy deposit (mid October) before the original tenancy agreement finished (31st Oct) so we were not able to use the My Deposit return and (they claim) subsequent resolution panel. I will get in touch with your legal team, thank you!
Hi Daz, Please see the generic response I received from your support team. This is the same response I have received previously. Could you please ask your legal team to reach out to me?
@Nicholas9 - Thanks. This has already been escalated internally (appreciate that email fails to mention that!), but someone will reach out shortly. In all likelihood this will be to gather more information as a first step and then take it from there to support.
