Tenants are asking about a possible renew of the lease. I wonder what’s the normal procedure like for a renewal? Is it purely between me and the tenants or is it better get OpenRent involved?
I bought a rent insurance from Open Rent when the lease started, if I renew, how do I buy it again? I mean do tenants have to provide reference again?
Also, what is a typical annual rent increase like in London zone 4/5 area?
Many thanks.
If you signed up your last tenant using Openrent Rent Now, you can easily renew. You can see the renewal options when you log into Openrent & view the tenancy & its renewal options. This is a free service by Openrent. During this process, you can revise the rent. There is no need re-referencing, and you do not have to take a further deposit.
To add… you do not need to renew it, you can leave it to roll-on into a periodic tenancy. This means that neither you nor the tenant are tied into a new term. You do not need to renew in order to increase the rent. You can do this via a simple written agreement to increase rent under the existing rental agreement.
Better for you and the tenant to just let it go periodic. All the same tenancy terms will apply, but you will have more flexibility if circumstances change.
Thanks for the reply.
Actually I prefer to renew for another 12 months due to personal reasons.
Seem that the renew option on OpenRent is what I need.
The only question now is how to buy Rent guarantee insurance again from OpenRent for the renewal. @Daz Do you know about how to buy a rent insurance again from OpenRent?
If the personal reasons are that you feel its more secure to have certainty, then I’m afraid that’s a delusion.
My understanding is that the RGI policy covers you and your tenants for a year in the given property, if you renew your tenancy earlier than that then you can notify the insurer of any changes (eg change of tenants) and it should be covered at no additional cost / with a minimal adjustment fee (depending on exact RGI policy).
When you hit 12 months, you’ll be notified and able to renew at that point.
When I renew, do tenants need to be referenced again?
Yes, this was the question that I have just posed to Open Rent, as I am using a contract with a rolling tenancy.
I am at the point of ending one tenancy on the 22nd and about to start a new one. Can I use the same tenancy and simply change the names and rent? Or do I need to end the tenancy and start a new one?
When you renew your tenancy it’s up to you, but generally landlords don’t do this for already referenced tenants. If new tenants are moving in as part of the renewal, then referencing them (and any guarantors) is advisable.
When you renew your RGI policy I don’t believe it’s necessary to reference tenants again. This doesn’t matter if the tenancy is periodic or a renewal. If you have new incoming tenants/guarantors then they will need to comply with the policy which does require that they have been referenced. For any RGI specific questions you can also contact the insurer (details in your policy docs) if you want clarification.
Yes, there is an advert for it, it is £199, but I m sure it can be cheaper embedded into policies with other providers. I m sure that I had rent protection in my last insurance with Simply Business and my now new one with Covea. It’s worth taking a look. The insurance was a bit more than with Open Rent as it was £280, but I think it covered everything and so I didn’t need the seperate rent protection
Don’t forget you’ll have to do all the paperwork again including issuing deposit PI or that could come back and cause you big issues later on.
Oh didn’t know this. I plan to use the free renew service on OpenRent, does that not cover issuing the deposit PI?
Thanks for reminding!
Good call.
I think I opted out rent guarantee from my current landlord insurance as adding it was more than 199 quid.
Will check with my insurance to see how much it will be to add it for the renewal.
No idea. I do it all myself to make sure that no one else is failing to do it for me, and it’s one of the reasons i always let them go periodic. Even then you have to be careful if the govt decides to issue a new how to rent doc between ast and spt.
My understanding is that if you are having them sign a new tenancy then you have to reprotect the deposit and issue the paperwork again within 30 days.
That’s why if you fail to do this repeatedly and they come after you for failing to protect deposit, you’ll get done for multiple tenancies and that can get very very expensive.
I would be surprised if the renew service doesn’t take care of that.
@Daz would you please kindly confirm whether the renew service from Open Rent takes care of issuing the deposit PI?
Thanks a lot.
I do the renewal myself. I have deposit protected with the DPS. I renewed the tenancy for another year with an increase in the rent. I made enquiries of the process with DPS and they said “same tenants in the same property, there is no need to refund and re-protect deposit. Tenants can just make an incremental payment to reflect the new rent amount. Also no need to re-serve the prescribed information.” This makes complete sense and makes renewing a little less of a hassle.
Makes sense. That means you’ll only be caught out if you didn’t do it all correctly in the first place.
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