Deposits

When you rent a house through a landlord or lettings agency you will normally be asked to pay a deposit before you move in.

The deposit is normally equivalent to one month’s rent, but with SULETS we require a flat rate of £200 per person.

The deposit is often referred to as a damage deposit, as the most likely reason for landlords deducting money from deposits is to pay for the cost of repairing damage caused by the tenants during the tenancy. However, deductions can also be made by the landlord for rent arrears or to cover unpaid bills.

As part of the Housing Act 2004 the Government introduced tenancy deposit protection for all Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs) in England and Wales where a deposit is taken. Since April 6th 2007, all deposits paid under an AST (like the tenancy agreements we use at SULETS) have had to be protected within 14 calendar days of receipt by the landlord/agent.

The legislation aims to ensure that tenants who have paid a deposit to a landlord or letting agent and are entitled to receive all or part of it back at the end of that tenancy, actually get it! In short, it is trying to ensure tenants are treated fairly.


Halls of Residence-No Deposits!!

For our Halls of Residence, we have negotiated a special deal so that no students are required to pay a deposit. The only thing you will need to pay when reserving your apartment will be a £200 Energy Contribution which pays for all your unlimited heating, hot water, electric and broadband during your stay. There’s nothing else to pay after that until July!

Paying your deposit

Once you have decided on the house you want, we collect £200 from each tenant individually and up until the point all parties have paid their £200, we will hold on to the money as a holding fee, to secure the property. Once the final £200 is received, we then have a full deposit and this will be registered with the Deposit Protection Service (DPS) within 14 calendar days to ensure compliance with the legislation.

If the tenancy falls through before signing, we return the holding fee to you in full without any deduction. Most other agencies either keep the holding fee in full or retain a portion even if the tenancy falls through due to no fault of your own. If you need to pull out of your tenancy part way through, after the tenancy agreement has been signed, due to a change in your personal circumstances or failing your course, we will help you try to find a replacement by remarketing your room. If a suitable replacement can be secured we will redraw the tenancy agreements, guarantor documents and standing order mandates for you, however there will be an admin fee of £50 +VAT charged to cover some of the additional work involved. This fee will normally be deducted from your deposit, and the balance will be returned to you.

At the end of the tenancy

At the end of your tenancy, once all tenants have moved out of the property, we perform a tenancy check-out where we check the condition of your property against the independent inventory that was done at the commencement of the rental.

SULETS gets NO benefit whatsoever from retaining any of your deposit, and neither do the landlords, as any money retained is paid to the landlord by the DPS to cover damages or arrears. We want you to get all of the deposit back so just follow these simple tips for a problem free end to your tenancy:

  •  Ensure that all tenants in the property have paid their rent.
  •  Leave the property in the same state that you found it in, referring to the inventory
  •  Ensure all utility bills are paid or leave a forwarding address
  •  Hand all keys back in to SULETS office before leaving, including window and gate keys

We aim to return all deposits where there is no dispute within 14 days of the end of the tenancy but please bear in mind that we have a huge number of houses to check-out at the end of June.