Well, either the OP is dealing with a custodial deposit and what Martin41 quoted applies, or they’re dealing with an insured scheme and the deposit is sitting in the LL’s bank account.
Tenant didn’t pay rent and left property damaged, walked away with items provided.
That’s not the case. Insured deposits are held in OpenRent’s account with mydeposits. The deposit in question is being subject to a 90-day holding period due to not receiving a response from the tenant.
Er… what? The whole purpose of an insured deposit scheme is that you keep the deposit in your own account and the scheme’s insurance is to protect the sum of the deposit should anything happen to it. Why a LL would allow OR to hold insured deposits in its own account is beyond me. Defeats the purpose. Might as well go custodial.
In any case, the issue at hand is why OR insists on a 90 day time period when other schemes use 30 days. It would be good to have a rationale for that at least.
The handling of the deposit is outlined clearly in section 14.2 of our terms:
The holding period on the deposit is in respect of the tenant’s right to raise a dispute within 90 days, or three calendar months, which is stipulated by the deposit scheme:
Who gets the interest on the money in the scheme? No matter how long it is held for.
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depends what your tenancy agreement states, but in the absence of anything relating to this, the T would have a fair claim for the interest.
Found this interesting quote on the Independent Landlord website though
OpenRent have recently changed their RentNow service so that landlords must use their insured scheme, and they receive the interest. It is no longer possible for landlords to choose a custodial scheme if they use RentNow.
This is old news. This changed some time ago & has been discussed at length on the forum before, & the decisions why justified by OR.
I know the move to MyDeposits was discussed at length but I don’t recall discussion about the removal of custodial or why OR decided that. Got a link?
OR staff member explained why the decision had been made to move from custodial, to OR holding the money themselves on an insured basis.
They countered the ‘only doing it to earn interest accusation’, with an explanation that they would now be paying the ‘insured fee’ and interest rates might change.
I can’t find the post. I thought the old mod was Dan but can’t find him or any of his posts.
rings a bell actually. Thanks.
But by not allowing the LL to keep the cash, they are in effect running a custodial service in all but name. Not great optics…
ANd they still haven’t explained why they hang on to the deposit for an extra 60 days in the absence of T comms in a dispute.
they are a business to make money . so you either take it or leave it. Like any association or club . They have the rules and if you do not like them you leave and go elsewhere
Don’t worry… I left aaaaages ago. I saw which way the wind was blowing. It just narks me that they talk all about transparency and customer-focus but are actually business-centric.
they still haven’t explained why they hang on to the deposit for an extra 60 days in the absence of T comms in a dispute.
This has been explained a couple of times in this thread now. It’s a holding period stipulated by mydeposits to respect the tenant’s right to raise a dispute within three calendar months.
“the tenant’s right”? according to what statute?
TDS gives 30 days which is plenty. My question is why give 60 more days than is typical. This creates the kind of problem that the OP is experiencing.
TDS gives three months to settle the dispute from the day the tenant departs
If a dispute is raised they give a month to respond to the dispute and there are time frames for each period until it reaches adjudication
right… and, if I understand it correctly, OR gives 90 days.
Yes. In line with the requirements from mydeposits (not TDS) who we protect the deposits with.
and why do mydeposits require 90 days when other schemes require 30?
I don’t have insight into that I’m afraid.
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