Tag Archive: tenancy deposits

Problems with advance rent payments

Advance rent as deposit?
When a tenant appears to be a bit of a risk, rent wise, a landlord will generally either ask for a guarantee or an upfront payment of the first six months rent.  They will normally also take a deposit which will be protected in the normal way.
But is the five months rent [...]

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Tenants legal help – if you can’t afford to pay a deposit

Tenancy deposit problems
You have found the perfect property to rent, it is in the right area, the rent is affordable, but you just cannot pay the deposit.  What can you do?
Local authority bond schemes
The best thing to do is to see if there is a deposit or bond scheme in your area which can help.  [...]

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Discharge bonus – an alternative to deposits?

Discharge bonus v. tenancy deposit
There is an interesting post over on the Pain Smith blog which raises a new alternative to tenancy deposits.  A discharge bonus.
A discharge bonus is where the tenant pays no deposit (and so the landlord does not have to mess about with tedious tenancy deposit scheme administration) but if the tenant [...]

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Tenants legal help – checkin precautions

Tenants checkin meetings and inventories
When you rent a property, you will often have a checkin or handover meeting before you move in. The landlord or agent will take you round and check the contents against the inventory list. You will then be asked to sign to confirm that everything is in order, before [...]

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Tenancy deposit questions answered

I am getting a lot of questions from people just now, both on my Landlord Law Q&A and also from people who email me from this blog.
So I thought it might be helpful to do a post just answering briefly some of the most common questions.
Q: Do tenancy deposits taken for common law tenancies need [...]

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No win no fee help for tenants whose landlords don’t protect their deposits

Announcing a new Landlord Law service : www.tenancydepositclaim.com.
About the tenancy deposits scheme
Since April 2007 landlords have been required to protect tenants deposits (for ASTs) in one of the three government authorised tenancy deposit schemes. This has largely infuriated landlords but there are a number of good reasons for it:

The deposit money belongs to the [...]

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Hidden benefits of using the DPS

I have discussed this situation before, but am prompted to write about it again, as a result of the recent experience one of my Landlord Law members.
He tells me that he arranged for a letting agent to protect the deposit, which they did with My Deposits.  He then went away travelling for a year.  While he was away, [...]

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The Landlord Law Blog from Tessa Shepperson

Tessa is an English solicitor who specialises in residential landlord and tenant law.

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