UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have been a landlord for a number of years in the student market and never had a problem with taking deposits. Just recently I had a near miss with an all too clever tenant, who used my failure to provide the prescribed information to their parents who provided the deposit, as a way to get out of their tenancy early.

I am now moving into letting high end HMO's to young professionals and was thinking about taking a non-returnable admin fee as opposed to a deposit...wondered if anyone had any experience of this and what the pro's and con's are..

Thanks

Pros - you get money.

Cons- Doesn't motivate the tenant to keep the place nice. Who would want to pay a large deposit type sum they are not going to get back, might make letting difficult.

The Pro's obviously outweigh the cons, let us know how you get on.

If this Admin. Fee is 'deposit sized' in nature, then would it not have the effect of making your property less desirable as it's money the Tenants would not have a chance of getting back?

I think if I was a Tenant, knowing what I know about 'da roolz', and I looked at one of your properties with a non-refundable admin. fee instead of a deposit, it would turn me right off. It would probably make me think you are a lazy, greedy, law-abusing Landlord (I'm not implying that you are, it would just make me think that).

Why not just avoid near misses in the future by serving the required PI as a matter of course? It's really not that hard (in my experience) although I admit it is a bit of a faff, but I just try and look at it as something I get paid for, like... it's part of my 'job'. Also, it reassures Tenants that I am completely above-board and I'm not trying to finagle the system.