UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hello all

I am a virgin landlord, and am dealing with the marketing of my property, as well as the tenancy management once it has been let.

I was about to get my property listed on Rightmove, when I initiated some interest through Facebook. This lead to a couple of viewings, one of which appear to be ideal candidates: they have furnished me promptly with passport details, bank statements, referees etc and having checked them out (including credit checks and references), they seem perfect. I have offered them the tenancy and they have accepted - and I have no good reason to believe they will not proceed. However I am aware that I have left myself vulnerable since there will always be a risk of them reneging and I have not asked them to pay a fee or otherwise offer anything other than a verbal commitment.

My question is simply to ask how do you all ensure your prospective tenants commit after they have accepted a tenancy, and before they sign the tenancy agreement?

Thanks

Non refundable holding deposit offset against first rental payment.  Not had to do this myself.

My Tenants pay me the first month of rent, plus the deposit (which I protect upon receipt) before the Tenancy starts. You do not give any idea of timescales here - are we talking a couple of weeks or several months before the tenancy is due to start? I would usually ask for these payments 1 to 2 weeks before the tenancy starts... is that about the same kind of time you're dealing with? No-one has ever demurred regarding this.

Thanks Riptide and Hippogriff for your replies.

There was about ten days between the prospective tenants verbally committing and signing. I am asking for the deposit and first month's rent the day before tenancy begins, but perhaps in future taking this at the time of committing to rent, is the way to go.

Thanks again

With Faster Payments being ubiquitous now, asking for payment the day before Check-In is not a silly idea. But I would always give myself more time. I like to take the rent and deposit in good time so that I can protect the deposit and have everything printed off for the day of Check-In. I wouldn't take it at the time of wanting to rent. They won't have seen the AST you will put in front of them, yet. I always give Tenants a week or so to review the AST and confirm back to me that they're OK with it. If they are, I'll ask for funds.