UK Landlord Forum / Life

Bonjour, been a while.. 

Quite a complex situation. I own a portfolio of properties and also my own letting agency so I've added my properties to our existing management portfolio.

For my personal properties I would like to charge new tenants with pets a flat fee of £200 that is specifically held back at the end of the tenancy to clean carpets etc. I know this can't be called a pet deposit as deposits are refundable so I'm going with 'pet fee' which seems to already exist...... my question is what are the ways I can charge this? In an ideal rainbow unicorn filled world I could just protect this £200 with the DPS on top of their original deposit however I don't think this sort of thing exists. Would I need to hold onto this money with Client Money Protect (because my agency is registered with CMP)

Bit of a conflict of interest going on doing it through my agency I would have thought.

Cheers!

I don't know about the organisational aspects of the dilemma, but I have taken an extra Deposit amount in the past, and protected it in-line with the rest, and we've agreed up-front, and written it into the AST, that this portion will be used for cleaning carpets / curtains at the end of the tenancy - whether perceived as required or not. It has always worked-out. It may seem strange, because it's being protected but all parties know it will come to me at the end - so it might as well just go to me there and then, but - as I say - it's always worked-out and it coming to me at the end of the tenancy means that I have always used that money for the cleaning, I've not just pocketed it (which could be a temptation in certain circumstances, I'd imagine).

In my experience Tenants with pets are so grateful that you're willing to take their business in the first place that they accept this. Additionally, they also stay longer. Their life, finding Landlords who will accept pets, is hard enough and something like £150 (my amount) and £200 (your amount) generally does not cause them to waver.