I signed a contract with a prospective tenant, which was contracted to start on the 30th October. They paid the Holding deposit and1st months a short time ahead of the 30th, but not the 1 months deposit and there is therefore an outstanding balance that meant I did not issue keys.
I initially received steady communication and reassurance that the remaining amount would be paid shortly, deadlines slipped and we have still not handed over keys. I was then notified of a bereavement in the tenants family, then I have not received any answer to my calls or replies to msgs in the last 10 days. I served the 96 hour payment deadline which is due to expire on Weds.
If payment is not received by Weds - and I continue to have no response to my messages or calls, what would I do for next steps? She listed the address of my house as her ‘notice address’ in the contract (which she doesn’t have access to).
well whatever you do, don’t hand over keys under any circumstances. SHe’s already shown herself to be someone you should not be renting to. Unless she takes occupancy, the tenancy has not commenced. Once the deadline expires, return the one month’s rent and send her written communication that due to non-payment the offer of a tenancy is now withdrawn and no keys have been handed over and that you’ll be retaining holding deposit. You can keep the holding deposit because they have not acted in a timely manner.
Make sure you keep a copy of all correspondence that you have had with her in case she later tries to claim she has a right to the tenancy.
The dashboard on openrent points towards my ‘cancel options’ as being obtaining a Deed of Surrender which can be completed through openrent. Openrent is is basically my only open channel of communication with the tenant, as they listed my rental address as their notice address, and aren’t replying to calls/whatsapp msgs.
Am just concerned that if they are unresponsive to the Deed of Surrender request, I have no options left to end the tenancy, and can’t rent to anyone else.
Ask openrent support @mod_harry may be able to help.
Just because an option isn’t on the dashboard doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. As the tenancy hasn’t legally started it can’t be surrendered I’d have thought and there’s no valid contract as tenant hasn’t met initial terms nor have you been able to as you can’t put deposit in a scheme for them if they’ve not supplied it.
You can’t be the first time this has happened. OR support should be able to advise but I’d have thought returning the monthly rent but keeping holding deposit because they’ve failed to respond to behave reasonably to allow tenancy to go ahead in a sufficient time would be fair.
I’m yet again amazed how little control OR gives people who pay for their services.
As I said in my first message, you don’t have a tenancy so no deed is needed. You also should not have received that first month’s rent because OR hold it for 10 days I believe. Ideally, it would not be passed to your bank account and then it’s not your issue to deal with. OR support should help you out here. Mods watch threads so will likely respond here.
The one months rent has been paid, but is held by openrent indefinitely (beyond the normal 10 days process) until the full balance is paid and tenancy commences (and in that sense hasn’t been received).
so that channel is open and she’s choosing not to respond. That’s good. It means you can use that channel for the message that I described above (along with any other channels of written communication you have open). If that msg gets marked as seen, you’ll know she knows.
All parties have now signed the tenancy agreement through the OpenRent platform. Therefore, in order to cancel the process now you’ll need to do the following:
Sign a tenancy surrender deed.
Cancel the tenancy on your OpenRent Account.
So my concern is that with the tenant being unresponsive, that we won’t be able to collectively agree to terms for the surrender, or to get the required signature from the tenant.
To be fair to OR it must be relatively unusual for tenants to pay part but not all of what’s due and not a circumstance you’d design a website for. like a lettings agency I expect they can advise and sort properly if you can engage with them its just harder because they don’t give out tel numbers to contact them which is a cheaper business model and a lower user price. We all value a person to talk to when there’s a problem and I do find companies that don’t provide that odd. It’s like self catering with a keycode is different from a b&b with a warm friendly welcome.
That is why i use an agency to let. I can go into the shop and speak to a person, I can phone up and get result. Cost a bit more but all tax deductible
Thanks Colin. Just to keep the discussion on track to the specific issue I’m facing; any further suggestions around how I approach the issue of being tied into the existing contract and an unresponsive tenant…
Well, to be fair to me, you’ve clearly not had time to read through all my content to hear the very many times I’ve said similar things about OR’s process over the last two years. It’s not just this one issue. I abandoned OR for tenancy creation the very first time I used it because it gave me no control over which deposit scheme to use. That was a red flag to me. Since then, it’s become even less flexible.
Case in point: Samuel has now just confirmed that although legally a tenancy has not commenced, OR has incorrectly deemed that it has. Wow!
@Samuel33 once the deadline expires, do as above and then delete the listing entirely and find a high street agent who can do this for you properly.
@Samuel33 I’d ask for advice from OR on whether you actual are in any way tied into a contract when tenant hasn’t met the initial payment terms. You can’t be expected to provide a service that includes putting deposit in a scheme if deposit hasn’t been provided. They can’t provide their services to you to do the depositing or manage the rent collection either. So ask them what the legal options are to cancel it all and declare it all null and void. They have a legal team and you’ve signed up to their service to collect 1st month’s rent and deposit but also to help manage any difficulties with payments. So they should tell you your options in the circumstances they haven’t been able to collect what is due, even before tenancy has started (which @tatemono says it hasnt)
I can see you’ve set a 96-hour deadline for the final balance to be paid. If this is not paid by the time the deadline elapses, the Rent Now application will automatically be cancelled and the holding deposit will be forfeited to you.