When I purchased a property there was an existing tenant and management agent in place. I now owned the property for around 10 years with the same (excellent) tenant. However the management agent has been slowly increasing their costs over that period. I finally had enough and terminated their services. There are no contractual issues with the agent and I am free to start again. The last fixed contract has recently expired and I need to ensure that I’m 100% contract compliant now that they have become periodic. The management agent still retains the tenant’s deposit and a set of keys.
Can someone advise me on what steps I need to take to transfer to OpenRent. In particular two things concern me. Firstly how to transfer the security deposit and secondly how to ensure that this is perceived as a continuing tenancy and not a completely new one. Advice would be appreciated.
@keithhc
You can take over from the management company by serving the tenant with a section 3 notice informing the tenants of your bank details for the payment of rent. And a section 48 notice to provide the tenant with a UK address for the serving of notices. No need to renew the tenancy. There will also be a process for handling the deposit. The process will depend on whether the deposit is in a custodial scheme or an insured scheme. Openrent support will be able to advise further.
Best!
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This is your most important statement and it may be a bigger task than you realise. The RRA is a game changer and has punitive penalties for simple errors.
Openrent is not a managing agent. Its a letting agent that offers tenancy set-up with a few extras. You have to be certain that you have the time and inclination to self-manage before finally deciding. If you decide to go ahead, I’d strongly suggest to join a landlord association and do some intensive training before attempting to transfer anything. This is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the country despite what the media would have you believe.
@keithhc
What are the costs and what are the agents providing?
If you want OR to deal with the security deposit (and create a tenancy agreement) you have to end current tenancy return deposit to tenant and start new one with new deposit via OR. OR insist on collecting holding deposit and balance of 1st months rent (then paid to you up to 10 days after move in). That is their only service. There is no way to ‘transfer over’ the existing deposit to OR or for them to take over an existing tenancy. They simply dont do that.
Consider moving management to another lettings agent as well or just moving deposit to a different deposit account controlled by you not the agent (ask the deposit scheme how to do that).
Openrent wont make sure anything is compliant except by using their standard tenancy agreement and making sure gsr etc served at start of tenancy. Everything else up to you. Managing the tenancy making sure compliant means everything from dealing with tenant enquiries properly to regular inspections and move in/out stuff (referencing inventory tenancy creation etc). Simple stuff like not taking rent in advance.
Make sure you and agents serve the info sheet to tenants by 31 may or get a £7000 fine.
Good luck
Openrent are able to deal with Off-site tenancy agreements. Go to their help files and search for Off-site tenancies.
@Christopher32
Sort of.
By ‘deal with’ OR mean providing a page where you as a LL can load a copy of the tenancy agreement and other related docs such as a gsr or epc. They wont provide any actual services related to such tenancies. So ‘deal with’ in a very minor sense. Thats like saying Microsoft ‘deal with’ tenancies by allowing docs to be uploaded onto onedrive.
Best