A person who was earning about 45k had CCJS unpaid of about 8k Even if it were a fiver he wont get one of my places
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If they signed a contract they are legally bound
It is your choice to release them
If you choose to release them make sure they sign a deed of surrender with your t and CS
Donât just say sure as you could be caught out as they may stake claim later on
I will be glad if OpenRent can respond to the issue on suspected fraud from payment transactions being raised by Banks. If Tenants and Landlords are adversely impacted by this, it doesnât show a good image for OpenRent business.
Hi Rosie,
The lesson is get qualified guarantors who have their own house and pass the necessary checks
Me2 Colin, in fact if I donât pre meet my tenants they donât even get a look at an AST
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Hi Brian7
Yes indeed, I can see that the more layers of security you can build up, the safer you ought to be. And if someone in the chain owns a house, thatâs a useful thing!
However, when you get a guy with a good salary (provable), whoâs just had a pay-rise, whose employer (a good long-standing company) is respected in the area, and the guy has a clean DBS check and available cash etc, why would you be thinking of a guarantor? If Iâd suggested the need for a guarantor to my Tenant, he would have said why? and Iâd have had no answer.
And a man can pass all the checks and still tell you a load of lies about why he wants your house.
R x
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Sounds like a load of excuses to me Jingyi.
They have signed a contract and were liable for the full term of rent. However, if deposit and 1st months rent were not paid, the contract has not been completed if not dated. However, it will have been as monies were requested. That is neither Openrentâs fault or yours.
The tenants bank would have recognised Openrent so something else is going on.
It would not be unreasonable for loss of rent until a new tenant or lost of the holding deposit but the latter would have been rolled over into the fees due plus any penalties for non payment.
Of course they are winging about the personal contact of the high street agent as they pay no fees and want all the f2f service. The landlord has the choice of the cheapest route to obtain a tenant, not vv or put up the rent to cover the extra costs, it has to be financially viable. By choosing the best route the tenant actually gets a better deal. All the legalities and checks I take it were done, just as a high street agent. It all could have been sorted with a tenant payment, it was not or was it offered?
Hereâs the legal response
When does the tenancy agreement become a binding contract?
Sometimes a tenancy is arranged using the phrase âsubject to contractâ. If it is signed but not âexecutedâ then there is no tenancy contract. In this situation, tenants can pull out but may still be bound by any separate holding deposit agreement they signed up to.
A tenancy will only have been âenteredâ into properly if all parties have signed the agreement, including all joint tenants where there is more than one tenant, and the tenancy agreement has been âexecutedâ by dating it at the point of signing.
You asked what more you could have done, spoken to Openrent to get the apparent issue sorted as I too have had warning about monies transfers to them.Although it has to be said with Covid it is more difficult.
Use Openrent for tenant find only and maybe the tenant referencing, use your own AST (make sure its current) or Landordâs Association ASTâs and have any monies paid direct to your account.
To be honest, we had the same issue trying to pay our deposit. I couldnât set up a bank transfer for the deposit and I also I couldnât pay online, as my bank had an issue with the financial company that Open Rent uses (due to suspicion of fraud).
I finally had to ring the bank, and following 30mins of being on hold and 20mins trying to sort the payment out with customer services our payment was finally processed. Iâm not sure why it took your potential tenants a weekend to try and pay the deposit and why the bank would freeze their account. Seems all very weird to me. Do they not forfeit their deposit in this situation?
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Thank you for this info. Now we know it is quite common that banks suspect fraud and freeze tenants accounts. Yes I agree Openrent should do something to improve this.
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Thank you for your detailed reply. In our case, the contract was signed by all parties and they had paid the full deposit and the first month rent. In my understanding, we have a valid contract and they are liable for rent of the full term. However, they seemed really worried about the Openrent platform and asked very nicely. So in the end we agreed to surrender the contract through the help of Openrent. Hopefully Openrent will sort the bank problem soon.
that is one i never expected LOL
I have also had problems with OpenRent payment systems. I got good professional tenants very ready to move in and get sorted but they tried three different banks none of which would allow payment of holding deposit to OR. We emailed back and forth frantically- each time I got a standard bot type answer asking if there was anything else they could help me with. Finally tenants agreed to pay me holding deposit directly but OR apparently have no mechanism to accept me paying it!! So I refunded the tenants and again tried for help from OR ( this was at the beginning of the August bank holiday) Nothing happened and on Tuesday tenants contacted me to say they were so concerned about not getting anywhere to live that they had put down a deposit on another flat. Mine remained void until 1st November - a period of two months,plus of course I had to pay the council tax for this period. So thatâs about ÂŁ3k I lost.
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I only advertise thru O. R. I collect rents, use own contract. do all paperwork myself, collect and send off deposit . First months rent and deposit either a cleared fund or cash I do it myself. i trust myself
Itâs concerning how unregulated OpenRent is. Iâm sure that using them is highly advantageous from a Landlordâs point of view, but, as your prospective Tenants pointed out, they offer no protection if things go wrong. I think that theirs is a smooth operation (besides the use of TrueLayer open banking that flags up transactions as potentially fraudulent to many High Street Banks!), but I think there should be follow-up and recourse.
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Hello there, I know this post is a few months ago and I hope some one ca help me.
I have a found a couple , who likes to rent my place. One of them will have their employment ceased on October, but is positive to find a new job, they provide a guarantor.
My big question is, they will move in the end of August, I am wondering if I can get a deposit pay before we sign the contract and get the first months rent pay 3 days before they move in?
Thank you so much for your help I really appreciate this
I have answered this in your other post
Dear A_A,
Thank you so much, I really appreciate your reply. I replied on the other chat.
Thank you