My tenant left without giving notice leaving the flat full of rubbish and owing rent. I am holding a deposit through the OpenRent deposit holding scheme and have made several attempts to contact the tenant so the deposit may be released and used against the rent owed. OpenRent collected the rent and so I have proof that I am owed rent. The tenant has not responded to many requests and I do not have a forwarding address for him. Any help on how I might proceed would be very welcome
Lodge a claim with the deposit protection service used. You do not need to have direct contact with the tenant in order to do this, Just make sure you evidence your claim.
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I have had 2 tenants referencing via open rent. Both had the deposit returned. You cannot keep it. Both said they hadn’t any ccj’s either. Another thing to watch is that the address they may give you may be an address where they are not on the electoral role making it impossible then to check credit against them.
In the end I allowed viewings, after Tenants had completed a simple questionnaire which asked about salary and If they had ccj’s, where they lived if they were on electoral roll etc and then if they showed interest after viewing I asked for wage slips, ID and bank statements. Only when I had viewed these did I get referencing done. It worked on the next two occasions.
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Thank you. I`ll try that
Deal direct with the DPS or MyDeposits
You put in your claim, they will adjudicate. If the tenant doesn’t dispute your claim within the time limits they are given then you will automatically be awarded, so their non responsiveness could work in your favour
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Second Caitlin. Opening a DPS account is free. Managing it is easy and no cost. Tenants are kept fully in the loop by DPS if their contact details are correct.
Hi Elizabeth,
You can see our advice regarding making deductions from the tenants deposit here: https://help.openrent.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/360013683991-My-tenancy-has-ended-how-do-I-return-the-deposit-to-my-tenants-
If you could email us at info@openerent.co.uk with the property ID, we can look into this further for you and provide some more specific advice.
Kind regards,
Matthew
Is this the case now? When I’ve had no response from a tenant via DPS in the past, it would have to be several weeks before you can do something and then you’d have to make a single claim which has to be signed off by a solicitors. It was a bit of a pain. It would be great if OpenRent allowed deposit transfer to insured schemes instead.
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The DPS is free and you get what you pay for.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. The DPS also has an insured scheme. The issue is not whether it’s free or not but that you dont have any control over the deposit with a custodial scheme and that’s whether it’s with DPS or MyDeposits (both are free btw).
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When I’ve had problems. Similar I’ve just lodged a claim with the DPS where my deposits are kept, you need to provide evidence you’ve contacted the tenant or that u have no way, presumably you had an email. Or phone no. When they moved in. I had to fill in their form, a stat. Dec. Along with any evidence & have it signed by a legal person such as local solicitor, this costs me £5 cash & send it to the deposit holding Co. They will contact the tenant via the phone no. Or email u last had for them & I think its a month, if they don’t respond you get the amount you’re claiming from their deposit, presumably in your case, all of it.
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There are 3 “bonding facilities” for deposits you can use: my deposits, dps and tds. you can go either custodial or insurance route. i strongly prefer the insurance route as agents can go bust and you hold the money
having tried all 3 outfits i find my deposits are heavily biased towards the tenant and after 4 disputes we moved away. DPS are pretty rigid to deal with and TDS come out tops for fairness and approachability.
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