Tenant saying open rent contract is invalid because he failed the credit checks

Landlord Discussion
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A tenant who recently left a property in an appalling state and two weeks in arrears is trying to claim the whole deposit back as he says that he wasn’t an official open rent customer in the first place, as he failed the credit checks , so the tenancy agreement is invalid

“May I remind you that you have no lawful rights to withhold any of my deposit and any claims for monies lost - under queens law, the highest law in the land -. State that only persons with a signed contract of agreement can make any claims for them”

Franky, I’ve never heard such crap.

Anyone else had similar experiences?

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bunkham. Paying rent taking keys = contract

1 Like
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@Sean41

First - change the locks asap.

Second tenancy agreements can be verbal (Google ‘Understanding your tenancy agreement verbal citizens advice’ and scroll down) - send tenant the link. No signature or written contract needed.

Third if you used OR to create tenancy agreements remind tenant they signed as did you despite the failed checks and send him a copy of the signed contract. You’ll find it under ‘manage tenancies’ and it will have their and your (electronic) signature. Simples.

4. I’m sure OR will confirm (ask @mod_harry or @Dan4 or contact OR support via contact button at bottom of OR faqs page) but they will not have taken 1st month’s rent without a signed tenancy - because that would indeed have been wrong.

5. As for retaining part of deposit, you can tell tenant the deposit scheme is entirely independent and if he wants to dispute the legality of you retaining the deposit he has to approach the scheme not you. (If you didn’t protect deposit correctly in a deposit scheme they are entitled to the whole deposit back and can go to court and get 1-3x deposit as a fine you’d have to pay plus their legal costs)

Good luck

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Hi.

I believe there to be a bigger issue here with brokers and insurers, landlords and non landlords. Most importantly a cautionary tale to all landlords - albeit not a directly related issue.

My experience was not with open rent per se, but was a step further.

My ex tenant made a cannabis plant out of my property. There were exhaustive checks on the tenant. These were accepted by the legal part of the insurer.

Apart from having to go through the FCS to get loss of income, which they refused to cover initially, my legal cover refuses to start civil proceedings to recover damages.

In context, my ex tenant is awaiting criminal trial.

My legal insurers refuse to take this to court because there is “a less than 50% chance of winning”.

If the police are bringing a criminal case, and have a chance to win why are the insurer/ broker refusing? I’ll answer this, cost.

I have asked for proof of how the legal insurers estimate 50%. No answer, and another escalation to the FCS.

To sum up, you have a good defence, but ultimately if anything major happens, you are on your own.

I invite you to read Marin Lewis reporting on the Which report which sums up insurers of not paying out for travel and car insurance. Akin to what is happening to landlords also.

Good luck and keep on pestering.

There should be a nationwide body against brokers and insurers not just the FCS who were as bad or worse to deal with than the brokers/ insurers.

Everything and all conversations in writing as they tend to lose recorded calls.

Good luck!

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@cats0728

sorry to hear of your problems.

the chances of success in a civil case depend what evidence you have which may be different from the police who have their own sources. And the chances of recovering the funds even if successful may be very low if ex tenant will soon be in jail. If you had policy cover for malicious damage (some insurers offer this) it may be covered by that?

More generally insurers have a bad reputation (just like estate agents and MPs) and certainly are happy to receive premiums but sometimes less helpful when there is a problem - this is hardly news.

Good luck

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How about:A league table of best insurers for LL.

A Rating for Tenants by previous LLs which will likely be near zero if it ever happened. Think AirB&B ratings for visitors which does work.

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@A1113 try joining Which - they already do rankings of Landlord insurance. But even the best insurers will reject some claims

As for ranking tenants by previous LLs - LLs will give a bad tenant a good reference to help them move on. So would not really work like airbnb. A database showing those who have been evicted on what grounds would be fair but even then if somebody is in rent arrears and a LL decides to sell up so evicts on the grounds they want to sell a place you won’t know the real reason. But would be a good idea if could record those who’ve been evicted, those who’ve claimed RROs etc.