Future tenant is saying she feels more comfortable if we do everything through Rent Now, but to be honest we didn’t want to use it as we feel we can do it ourselves.
Before you ask for any money from a prospective tenant, you should send them proof of ownership or of permission to let. This may reassure her. I would never use Rent Now
you own the place. you decide not the tenant .If she does not trust you, you do not need her
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Thank you both!
What else can I offer her to give reassurance regarding the deposit and contract being drawn up?
Use a NRLA contract. and tell her who you send the deposit off to
Thank you! Can I get a NRLA template online and for free?
Who would you suggest to send the deposit to?
How about her holding deposit? I’ve asked her to send the holding to my bank account and think she got scared. She is a nice lady but probably not very familiarised with private landlords, just agencies.
Thank you so much! You’ve been so helpful!
I am in the NRLA so get it free, as for non members I do not know… I use the goverment scheme, it has to go into your account first ,so you can send it off… All advice from NRLA is free as a member , and the fee is tax deductable I use open rent to advertise only and do everything else myself
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Patricia21, forgive me if I’m wrong, but your further questions above suggest you are not familiar with some of the fundamentals of being a landlord. The penalties of making even a simple administrative error can cost several thousands of pounds or in some cases a custodial sentence.
The treatment of the holding deposit is covered by the Tenant Fees Act 2019, and this legislation must be followed or you will not not be able to use s21, not be able to keep the holding deposit and could be liable to prosecution by Trading Standards.
The treatment of the security deposit is covered by the Housing Act 2004 and you could be liable to a penalty of up to 3x the deposit if you don’t properly protect it.
I strongly recommend you back up a bit and use a more traditional agent for the time being until you have joined the NRLA and undertaken their foundation training course.
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£9.50 for non-members
If you have a look at the How to rent guide this will give you an indication of what your legal obligations are as a landlord. Its on the government website and you should be issuing it to your tenant anyway. Hope this helps.
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I always use Rent Now, even one time when I already had the tenant lined up.
It makes the paperwork and movement of monies, deposits, first months rent etc so quick and easy.
At the same time it gives the tenant a good level of confidence and security, as I as a landlord never hold the deposit. Therefore the tenant cannot be swindelled by a dubious landlord. The deposit goes direct into safekeeping with Mydeposits.
Secondly Openrent collect the first months rent and hold it until the tenants have been in the property 10 days. To ensure all services are working properly and property is as stated. Giving more confidence to the tenant.
I’ll give an example of above. My nice young tenants left for change of job in another city. With we they were through Openrent.
After moving in to their new place they found their was no hot water and the boiler needed repairing, and the new landlord was dragging his heels. They kept calling me, as a nice lanndlord for advice.
With Openrent this would not have happened as the tenants could have informed Openrent and the rental payment would have been held back till the problem was fixed.
I love Openrent £49 option. I always find new tenants quickly and easily.
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Rent Now works for those with straightforward contracts and if you dont want to use an insured deposit scheme. We used them for a couple of years but then moved away as my tenants are mostly international students and they were struggling with the fact that the money had to come from a UK bank account otherwise it doesnt work with Rent Now. There’s also a limit to the customisations on their contract, for example, if 2 out of 4 tenants on a joint contract decide they want to pay the rent upfront while the others don’t, that’s not really possible on the Open Rent AST. There’s also a limit to the advance rent that you can collect. You also can’t extend the contract until about 2 months before the end of the current one (which again doesnt work for us). I think Rent Now is great if you want a more hands off approach and don’t need any of the things I outlined above. There’s no need to faff around with deposit schemes so it makes your involvement in the rental process simpler.