Found OR really easy to use, but just a little vent on a few matters…
frustrated that clauses from the government’s shorthold tenancy agreement aren’t pre-written so we can pop them in. It was a lot of work to research, cut and paste and re-write these. I can’t imagine many landlords won’t add clauses to their contract so it’s disappointing to not be helped. Reduces the value of using OR to create a contract.
The pop up window explaining that a deposit is recommended to be set at 1 month’s rent is advisable and necessary for renters insurance to be valid only popped up during the contracting phase when it was too late to adjust it. Should be warned about this with the avert phase.
When I paid for OR serve after already creating 1 advert, a new one was created. This led to confusion with having two live adverts, even when one was paused, people continued to message there, and when it was deactivated it made people think the flat had been let which it had not.
also, I paid for the referencing service, but my tenant claimed his work place’s security won’t let them use hyper links so he sent me a pdf instead, kind of making the referencing service redundant. Is there a work around?
frustrated that clauses from the government’s shorthold tenancy agreement aren’t pre-written so we can pop them in. It was a lot of work to research, cut and paste and re-write these. I can’t imagine many landlords won’t add clauses to their contract so it’s disappointing to not be helped. Reduces the value of using OR to create a contract.
Point (1): Can you outline which clauses you believe should be included by default in our contract, but are missing? I can see you have added 21 custom clauses to our contract, but there is definitely overlap / redundancy in the clauses you added vs. what our contract already states - so I wanted to be clear which clauses you believe are actually required / missing from our contract? Would be happy to discuss each one in turn.
The pop up window explaining that a deposit is recommended to be set at 1 month’s rent is advisable and necessary for renters insurance to be valid only popped up during the contracting phase when it was too late to adjust it. Should be warned about this with the avert phase.
Point (2): We’ll certainly look into how to best guide landlords at the advertising stage. Thanks for pointing this out.
When I paid for OR serve after already creating 1 advert, a new one was created. This led to confusion with having two live adverts, even when one was paused, people continued to message there, and when it was deactivated it made people think the flat had been let which it had not.
Point (3): Here is the timeline of your adverts:
30th January - you created your first advert (advert #1) on OpenRent
6th February - you duplicated the first advert on our site to create advert #2 (it’s not clear what the cause / reason was for that)
8th February - you marked advert #1 as no longer available
8th February - you duplicated advert #2 to create advert #3 (it’s not clear what the cause / reason was for that)
9th February - you marked advert #1 as available again
12th February - A tenant placed a holding deposit on advert #3
15th February - you marked advert #1 and advert #2 as no longer available
I’m not sure what your intention was in creating the multiple adverts, but there was no need / benefit from doing so and it was not required to do so. Your eventual tenants could have just as easily placed a holding deposit on advert #1.
also, I paid for the referencing service, but my tenant claimed his work place’s security won’t let them use hyper links so he sent me a pdf instead, kind of making the referencing service redundant. Is there a work around?
Point (4): We do require verified means from an employer to verify their employment. They don’t need to click on a hyperlink to do this, and can use an access code instead. We also have open banking verification as a secure way for tenants to verify their income without employer involvement. There are also many more checks involved in a reference, beyond verifying their income, included in our reference - so even if nothing was flagged as a warning in your case hopefully the checks themselves weren’t redundant.
In terms of accepting a PDF from the tenant directly, we’d advise caution there as any document coming from the tenant directly could be modified / fabricated, which is why we don’t rely on such documentation for our pass/fail reccomendations.
Regarding the first point - the additional clauses took me a really long time to create and it was only after this section that you get to the part where you review the contract. Before that there was nothing to indicate that open rent provide any clauses at all, just a form asking for all the main information, therefore I didn’t know what would be included in the contract before writing all the additional clauses. it took me several hours to research and write them. The contract preview / clauses insight should come first as I didn’t know there would be additional information not already seen. often previews often contain only the information already seen in a “ready to view” format.
I was frustrated that new adverts were created when I thought I had simply tried to edit the existing advert, for example i thought since I was already logged in and wanted to pay for advertising that it would link to the existing advert, but this must just be a case of getting used to how open rent works so it doesn’t happen again.
I realise that you post is principally about the functionality of the site, but its worth mentioning that you need to take very great care when drafting contract clauses as without proper legal knowledge they can end up working against you.
Thanks for clarifying @Fiona15 - that’s super helpful. If you do ever have a question, or are unsure what the process is whilst on the site, do send us a message (there is a help link on every page). It sounds like we could have helped a few times in your journey here, but I’m happy to explain them now even it’s too late for this tenancy. Hopefully it helps for next time!
On the page where you create custom clauses (which we do warn against quite heavily) there is a button called “Preview Contract”. This would have given you a preview of your contract in it’s entirety, before it’s issued to your tenants, so you could check what clauses we already include before drafting your own. We also have our standard contract available online here for perusal at any time. We do update this regularly to ensure the contract is up to date with the latest legislation and remains kept best in class.
I was frustrated that new adverts were created when I thought I had simply tried to edit the existing advert, for example i thought since I was already logged in and wanted to pay for advertising that it would link to the existing advert, but this must just be a case of getting used to how open rent works so it doesn’t happen again.
Understood, if you’re ever unsure do reach out to our team and we’ll point you in the right direction. If you ever want to edit an existing advert, you can do so directly from that advert and clicking the “Edit” button.
Regarding the tenant sending me a pdf, I’m not sure how to address this now. It would be helpful if the landlord was Cc’d into these communications (or given more info about what they have been asked to do) as I do not know what the tenant’s workplace has received and could not verify the hyperlinks issue. Has my potential tenant passed all the other checks? I felt very awkward when he asked me to accept the pdf instead.
If you want guidance on your referencing report, I suggest replying to our email where you were sent the report and our referencing team can help you - they have more expertise than I do on the specifics of your report, and we can ensure that conversation is private rather than public in this forum.
We’re always here to help, and glad even if there were a few hiccups along the way, that you got there in the end! Thanks again for your feedback and clarifying your original comments.
Thanks David - this is very true and we put up quite a strong warning for landlords who go down this path. We also notify tenants that custom clauses are not endorsed or checked by OpenRent and their validity would need to be checked independently.
However, some of our landlords are lawyers / have legal training, and it’s something that a very small % of landlords like to have that flexibility to add, which is why the functionality exists. OpenRent is, after all, designed to offer as much flexibility as possible so we can support both veteran professional landlords all the way to first-time landlords.