I have registered for the advertising portal only. I find that there is no dedicated procedure for this on the website and only Rent Now is available. Applicants are only offered Rent Now and are confused. E-mails purporting to show the applicant has placed a deposit arrive, but one then finds the applicant knows nothing of this.
This used to be a decent straightforward website, but it appears that every effort is made to be vague and complex and to drive landlords to accept services they do not want, in particular placing the deposit in Open Rentâs own bank account.
Why on earth would you accept a deposit and be prompted to use the rent now service?
Surely you would talk to potential tenants before they place a deposit and would be telling them not to do so via OpenRent if thatâs not what you want to do? And if they havenât bothered to talk to you first you donât want to be accepting them as tenants. As itâs then illegal for you to market to others.
You seem to fail to understand OR is just like you a business there to make money. They do that by offering and selling services. Including rent now.
So nice of you to respond so speedily, David240. So you are suggesting that the landlord must tell the applicants not to place a deposit, even though the landlord has not requested they place a deposit? And because they are confronted with a button apparently requesting that they place a deposit, they should ignore it? And apparently, you are of the opinion that one should not be able to market a property to more than one potential applicant?
What I do understand is that Open Rent is manipulating the situation in order to bolster their own holding account, which will indeed make money from the interest on the ongoing balance.
I have used the original Open Rent system quite happily in previous years, and arranged my own contracts and holding deposits (obligatory in Scotland using accredited companies only). That system is no longer available to me as things stand with this new version of Open Rent..
No all Iâm saying that you should talk to tenants just like any other site and if you want them to proceed and offer a deposit you tell them how to do it ie not via Openrent if that isnât what you want to do. And yes they are very foolish or just inexperienced if they think they should try to put forward a holding deposit with agreement of the LL first - because LLs donât want to accept a holding deposit in that way (because the ad is then taken offline by OR - which they may not realise). So they do need telling to ignore the button at least before agreed with LL, unfortunately.
Iâve not myself experienced emails claiming a deposit has been received when tenant hasnât press button but we donât know if these are spurious marketing emails from Openrent or if the tenant really has deliberately or otherwise pushed the button before talking to you.
I do sympathise and agree it would be better for you if the website only accepted deposits and offered the button after LLs have chosen to use ârent nowâ. But from ORâs commercial perspective it probably makes more sense to leave the option open as long as possible even for those who advertise and havenât yet decided whether to use rent now or notâŚ.
4.Re marketing itâs not allowed (at least according to various sources) to market once you have accepted a holding deposit.
See eg p33 âtenant fees act guidance for landlords and agentsâ
âYou should stop advertising a property once a holding deposit has been paid.â
And ask any agent - some will keep an advert live (and record interest /contact in case the person whose deposit has been accepted drops out) but they wonât do viewings.
-Otherwise if you carry on as if itâs not been received then the holding deposit doesnât actually âholdâ anything does itâŚ..
-might be different in Scotland tho..
5. There are plenty of other reasons not to use OR (difficulty in getting contact details, quality of applicants who ignore the screening questions etc, persistent marketing emails) but Iâm not sure the âRent nowâ button is the main one. Perhaps it was the last straw for you (like end of s21 has been for many LLs)
6. Ps an interesting previous thread on this - others seem to suggest getting round by arranging appts in the normal messaging not the OR appts system and by adding something to your auto message telling people not to use the button- not as good as disabling till LL wants I agree
-and others also asking to have it only enabled for a tenant when LL has agreed - donât think youâre in a minority on this. ORâs excuses that this would be clunky or put people off do seem a bit feeble tbh
This is a worrying issue. I need to check pleaseâŚâŚare tenants able to click on âRent Nowâ on the ad, then get asked to send money to OpenRent? I really hope not, my properties are in Scotland, where holding deposits are not allowed, so OpenRent would be putting the landlord on the wrong side of the law without them realising. I did once have my ad marked as âlet agreedâ because a prospective tenant decided they wanted the flatâŚ.even though I had not decided this yet, and had others still to seeâŚand never got to the bottom of it why this happenedâŚ..perhaps this was it. Whatever, I have to agree, the âRent Nowâ button needs to be removed completely if the landlord is using OpenRent for advertising only.
Clicking the Rentnow button for a property in Scotland just generates an application process to the landlord. I assume the landlord then either has to accept or decline that. If they accept it, I assume then, property is taken off-line.
I have every confidence that the process is compliant with Scottish law.
Thatâs not what happened though. Perhaps theyâve changed it? It was a year ago this happened, the prospective tenant said they wanted the flat, I still had others to see so hadnât made a decision, but the ad was disabled. A message came from openrent to say that a tenant had started the application process, which they were offering me free as a trial, and then I realised that the ad on all platforms was disabled.
This is the kind of problem I am having with Open Rent now. I have been e-mailed to tell me the client has put down a deposit (untrue it turns out, after I directly contacted the applicant), even without seeing the property, and then that is followed up by an e-mail telling me I have 72 hours to ârespondâ or the advert will be taken down. This has actually happened and left me with no advert.
The process used to be open and clear when one simply wished to use the advertising portal, but now there is no clarity and the system appears devious.
OpenRent is completely crossing the line here with these dark patterns. Automatically nuking your live ads just because a prospective tenant hit a button - before youâve even vetted them or made a decision - is straight-up terrible platform design. Itâs especially sketchy if their automated system risks putting Scottish landlords on the wrong side of the law over holding deposits just to push their own premium features. Definitely sounds like itâs time to jump ship and check out the alternative letting agents David mentioned before their devious site updates end up costing someone a massive fine.
I do not believe that the system tells you the applicant has made a holding deposit if they havenât. This will be an automated process and that email I am sure will only be generated when they have paid the holding deposit..
When the holding deposit is placed, you will be able to view the details of the application online including what the applicant filled in for their suggested tenancy start date. Can you see any of this?
When the holding deposit is placed you view it online you make a simple decision to accept or reject. If you reject this within the time stipulated your advert stays live.
Well, you are telling me I am mistaken, or a fool?
As stated earlier not only did I receive such an e-mail, but also a countdown of how long before my ad would be taken down. Two of my applicants were shown as having put down a deposit, despite having no viewings or meaningful discussion of their status. I had to check directly with them and neither had put any deposit down or pressed any buttonâŚperhaps they are lying? This issue also happened with other properties I have, so it is a constant situation now.
You are also saying that one can see nothing of the applicantâs details until they place the deposit button, which appears less than helpful.
I am withdrawing from Open Rent now as it either has major issues with its system, or it is deliberately set up to confuse and mislead.
I can confirm that there is a âRent Nowâ button present on every listing page which will allow tenants to make a request to place a holding deposit, or an application where the property is in Scotland.
Tenants are instructed to only use this function when they have the explicit permission of the landlord to do so and have to confirm they have this when making an application.
Once received, we notify the landlord and give them 96 hours to respond to the application. If for whatever reason you do not wish to proceed with the application, you can simply reject this.
If no action is taken within 96 hours then the listing will be paused - this is because we need to ensure that the property is still available to avoid dead listings, and make sure prospective tenants are receiving responses in good time.
The use of Rent Now is entirely optional and your listing will be unaffected as long as you take the required actions in response to an application being placed. We communicate these clearly via email and onsite.
If a landlord has registered only for the advertising portal, and not Rent Now, why is a Rent Now button placed on every listing page as clearly the landlord does not want to be involved in it?.
This is where the issue is and one of the many reasons why I stopped using OR. Many applicants have no idea that Rent Now is a product as opposed to an instruction i.e. if you want to rent now click this button. OR in fact have it set up to be potentially misleading. Take this example:
The placement and colour of the Rent Now button above that of contacting the LL and the asking of the question âReady to Rent Now?â all guide the applicant towards that path. If they click Rent Now, they arenât shown a check âHave you agreed this with the LL?â but taken straight to a place your holding deposit pathway.
What LLs like @Mr_A_H (and I ⌠and probably many others) want is for there to be no Rent Now button at all if we donât want to use that service and for Next Steps to take precendence and stand out more visually.
The only way applicants will realise they need the LLâs permission is via the small i in a circle. If they hover/tap that, they see this:
And, again, the sequence and wording is intentionally worded to direct applicants to Rent Now because it leads them to securing the property and only secondarily mentions having the LLâs permission. I use the word âintentionallyâ very ⌠er⌠intentionally because Iâm involved in UI/UX design as one of my businesses. These things are very specifically designed and worded. Theyâre not accidental.
But no, you cannot âsimply rejectâ Rent Now. You have no choice but to cancel the entire application by refunding the holding deposit and this creates all sorts of confusion right at the moment you want clarity and streamlining.
This is a business model designed to serve one purpose: making OR profitable.
Rent Now is the number one way we can keep tenants safe as they move into a new home. It allows us to have complete oversight of funds and treat them in accordance with relevant legislation.
For this reason we will always include the Rent Now option on every listing page as it is part of our mission to make renting fairer, safer and cheaper for everyone.
It is entirely possible to make use of OpenRent without using Rent Now, as many do.
