I agreed to rent a house back in March and paid up the intial holding deposit and then ultimately the first full months rent via Rent Now as per request from landlord. Once i had paid the initial months rent the landlord disabled Rent Now and asked me to pay rent from month 2 onwards direct to his bank account which again no issues from my side.
Now when i come to agree time this Saturday with landlord to pick up keys he says that he hasn’t received the first months rent which he says is a dependency for handing over the keys and asked me to reach out to Open Rent team to sort out why he hasn’t received the first months rent. Said in an email when i mention i paid the first months rent in March that I shouldn’t have paid via Rent Now and i had to copy his past email to me requesting me to pay first months rent via Rent Now as a reminder that this was at his request & that he had only disabled the Rent Now option the day after i paid up the first months rent. The response was ‘no issues if that is the case i should get the payment in next few days’.
Looking at Q&A i see that the first months rent payment is paid out to Landlord 10 days after the contractual start date (this Saturday) and hence i sent the link to Open Rent Q&A that details this out and also sent across an email from Open Rent that confirms i have paid the first months rent & mentions that landlord will receive the first months payment 10 days after move in & can contact them direct if he has any Q’s. I forwarded response to the landlord to reach out to Open Rent direct if he has any additional Q’s as far as i’m concerned the first months payment has been paid from my side 2 months ago.
The landlord now seems to have gone all quiet on me which is stressing me out as i will have nowhere else to live if he bails out on me at this late stage. I have contacted Open Rent support this evening via phone to ask them to call landlord and explain that the first months rent has been paid and ask him to reach out to me to confirm date keys can be handed across. All of this is an excruciatingly bad experience and i feel i shouldn’t have to be explaining to the landlord how rent now works scene as he has chosen the Open Rent platform and asked me to pay the first months rent via Rent Now.
Q to group is what would you do in this situation?
What can i do if worst case the landlord refuses to agree a time to handover keys this Saturday even though i have paid first months rent (via Rent Now) & paid deposit (direct to landlords bank account)?
In that situation would i be able to log the expenses incurred to me to store goods (have a lot of boxes in storage due to be delivered to new address on Monday) & any hotel costs incurred that i would have to stay in temp accommodation whilst i agree a new agreement with a new landlord if my current landlord decides to break the tenancy agreement & refuse to handover the keys? Assume id need to go through small claims court?