Creating a new tenancy with a new contract
Whether you want to move away from an expensive high street agent or would like the security of a new fixed term with your current tenants, it's simple to create a new tenancy using Rent Now.
The process is identical to creating a new tenancy with new tenants. You will need to add your property by creating a listing here. You can then choose our 'OpenRent Only' option to publish your listing for free, and your tenants can then apply using the Rent Now tab as usual. We have a step by step guide outlining how to use Rent Now without advertising here.
To set up the tenancy, we will need to receive:
- a holding deposit
- the first month's rent for the new tenancy
- the full deposit amount from the tenants
The current deposit that is protected would therefore need to be refunded to the tenants, or placed back into your account by the deposit scheme in order to be paid directly to us. Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to transfer the deposit directly between schemes as part of Rent Now. Your current deposit scheme should be able to assist in allowing the deposit to be released and ready to be paid to us as part of Rent Now with minimal hassle.
We need to handle all these aspects of tenancy creation in order to be able to ensure that all legal requirements are satisfied.
If you wish, you can also reference your tenants within Rent Now. You are free to skip this part if you are already happy with your tenants, and can go straight to contract signing once the holding deposit is placed.
There are two main things to be aware of to do this:
- The tenancy deposit will need to be paid to us in full so we can protect it and comply with the legal process of notifying tenants. If you have a deposit protected already, you will need to agree with the tenants how you intend to retrieve the funds and ensure we receive them.
- If you are migrating a tenancy involving tenants found for you by another letting agent, you must check if they are entitled to fees, even if the initial fixed term tenancy they created for you has expired and they will no longer be directly involved in the tenancy.
If you are unsure about this we strongly recommend you take legal advice; unlike when you deal with OpenRent, not all agents are transparent about this and we have previously seen clauses in terms of business which landlords aren't aware of. We have some more information on this topic here.
If you don't need a new contract yet
If you are not looking to create a new tenancy with a new contract yet, you can use our offsite tenancy function to add your tenancy information to our site so you can manage your whole portfolio on OpenRent.
You can add your existing AST, the tenants details and any tenancy documents, and we then make it easy for you to create a listing for the property when you next need to advertise, or when you wish to use Rent Now to renew the tenancy. Unfortunately, our rent collection service is not available when using the offsite tenancy manager, though we can still assist by sending you certificate reminders and let you know when your fixed term is coming to an end.
- How to use Rent Now without advertising
- Rent Now Guide
- I want to leave my current letting agent - How can I do this?