Being charged a holding deposit for a tenancy renewal

Pixie5740 wrote: »

??? :huh:

What does where you make the payment have to do with anything? Many tenants across the country make rent payments to the letting agent who then pass the money on to the landlord, minus their cut of course. If you were to renew who would you pay the money to, the landlord or the letting agent? My guess would be to the letting agent. What is the rent frequency set out in the tenancy agreement? Monthly, weekly, 6 monthly?

In other words letting the tenancy become periodic is absolutely an option available to you and the route I would go down if I were in your position.

Remember that the letting agent cannot evict you. Sure they could issue a Section 21 notice but it's the landlord who would have to take you to court to get the possession order, which you will have some protection against because you have reported repairs. Would any sane landlord go to the effort of court and eviction for a paying tenant over a periodic tenancy? No, they wouldn't.

Thank you Pixie

I must admit, this is an area that is completely new to me, so I wasn't sure how it works! In our last property the landlord dealt directly with us for everything, so we never had to renew via letting agents or deal with them at all after taking on the tenancy. Prior to that, I owned my own home with my ex-husband, so again, we had no letting agents to deal with.

In our initial tenancy it is set out at 6 months tenancy with full payment upfront, so I presume it would be on the same terms this time too.

I suppose I was under the impression that if things were to become periodic that it would be the landlord I had to pay direct, thank you for advising that this may not be the case.

The reason I am unsure about payment accounts is that when we made payment for this place, we were given bank details for the upfront payment to go into but there was a highlighted note that said "please note that this is not the bank account that you will make your regular rent payments into". Obviously paying upfront we had no regular rent payments but I would be worried about paying a large sum of money into this account again without first double checking (obviously this is something I will do, but communication with the letting agents is so poor it makes things really difficult).

After we have sorted this renewal out we will be taking things further with regards to the repairs etc, but for now we just want to get this sorted out. I know it sounds silly but we are worried if we make a big thing out of the repairs that the landlord will see us as a pain and want to get rid of us - I know this is a stupid thing to worry about (and probably makes me sound very naive) but it does worry me as I haven't been in this situation before and I hate feeling insecure! Think I need to "man up" a little!

takman wrote: »

Why did you tell them that you used Universal Credit? Have you told all the local letting agents this?. If not and you do look for another house to rent then you shouldn't volunteer this information considering your not using it to pay the rent or bills and it's just extra money for you.

Because I wanted to be honest with them and figured they would see it on my bank statements anyway - is this not the best thing to do? My bank statements do also prove that I earn enough to cover rent without those payments being taken into account.