When exactly will the landlord receive the first month's rent?
The payment is made 10 days after the contractual move in date. Where this date falls on a bank holiday, the payment will be made on the next working day.
For example, if the move in date is 01/01/2022, the payment of the first month's rent would be made to the landlord on 11/01/22.
We notify the landlord as soon as the money has left our account and after that it should be with them as quickly as bank processing times allow (often within hours, though in rare cases up to 3 working days).
Why do you hold the rent for 10 days before releasing it to the landlord?
The 10 day waiting period is one of our lines of defence against rogue landlords. As we don't always visit the property ourselves, we have to be reasonably sure the property is available, under ownership of the OpenRent landlord, and has been moved into before transferring the tenant's money.
This is a requirement to ensure tenants using Rent Now are protected. In an ideal world we could obviously remove this from our system. As a company, we gain nothing by holding onto this money. It's an administrative cost and burden.
What can cause delays in the payment being sent?
- The payment date falling on a weekend or bank holiday
In these cases the payment will be made the next working day. For example if 10 days after the move in date was 25/12/22, the payment would be made on 28/12/22.
- The landlord not providing or recently updating their registered bank details
If the landlord has not provided details for us to make the payment to, we can't send it! Where bank details are updated for any reason, outgoing payments are withheld for 48 hours for security reasons and the payment will be made after that time.
- Delays in the Rent Now process
If the tenants pay the final balance after the move in date specified in the contract, payment is made 10 days after the payment was received. Landlord's also need to ensure they have followed the steps to register the deposit on site for the payment to be released.