FAQs: Moving Out

The differences in outgoing costs between traditional deposits and zero-deposit schemes are actually very little! For Reposit you pay one week’s rent to Reposit who act to insure your deposit. This is non-refundable. You then pay the first months’ rent within 15 days as security for the landlord leading up to the tenancy. This is the case with all zero-deposit schemes. For a traditional deposit, you would pay a holding deposit. You then pay 5 weeks’ rent within 15 days for the rest of the deposit, minus the holding deposit you’d already paid. The first month’s rent would then be paid 7 days before the beginning of the tenancy. After this, the differences are minimal until the end of the tenancy. With a traditional deposit, we will send you a breakdown of any deductions within a month of your tenancy end date and then once agreed, will return the balance of the funds to you. With Reposit, we will submit any end of tenancy charges onto their platform with 24 days of the end of your tenancy, you will be notified of these by Reposit and once agreed, you will pay this money to Reposit.

All keys should be left together inside the property. Please do not hand-deliver or post keys back to our office, as this will mean they are not listed on the check-out report and you may be charged.

If your front door requires a key to lock when closed, please pop the rest of the keys inside, lock the front door and push the last set through the letterbox.

If you are on a bills included package, nothing! Prior to the last day of your tenancy, contact your gas, electricity and water suppliers to let them know you are moving out. On the last day take meter readings and provide them to supplier. (Tip: take photos of all the readings, they can come in handy!). If you have top-up meters for any utilities, you must ensure these have the same amount of credit as when you moved in. You can find this information on your inventory. Don’t forget about broadband / telephone providers, your TV license and to re-direct any post. We will not be able to collect any post for you once you have moved out.

The best way is to use your inventory and go around the house room by room making sure the property is returned to the same condition as when you moved in. Don’t worry, we will of course allow for fair wear and tear. Pay special attention to cleanliness, this is the most common deposit deduction. We would recommend sourcing the inventory sent to you at the beginning of your tenancy to refer back to, just to be safe!

After the check out has been completed on the last day of your tenancy, we will have a breakdown of any deductions to you within one month at the latest, but we will aim for sooner. Once agreed, your deposit will be returned within 48 hours to your nominated bank account.

We always hope that we will be able to find a middle ground, where you are happy. However, if you do not agree with the deductions you have the right to dispute your deposit through MyDeposits. MyDeposits do ask that you have attempted to resolve the disagreement (e.g. you have told us you are not happy and asked us to clarify anything) before taking it to dispute. Please note the dispute process is the first step and will be judged by an independent claims official. Small claims courts will direct you to MyDeposits dispute service in the first instance. If you would like to raise a dispute, you can do so on the MyDeposits website www.mydeposits.co.uk.

Yes of course! If you are happy with the breakdown, please feel free to email us straight back to let us know and we can return this to you at the next available opportunity.

We will give you 48 hours to initially respond to the breakdown. Please note, we will not return the deposit before this time period has passed. Once the 48 hours have passed, if we have not heard from you regarding this, we will return the deposit to you as soon as we can providing all tenants have completed the ‘Deposit return form.’ Please contact us if the deposit is not in your account after this time period and we will look into why this is.

Most tenancy agreements are joint and severally liable. This means the deposit is one payment and all deductions will be made from the deposit as a whole. We will send a breakdown of deductions detailing any charges on a room by room basis where we can, to help you divide up the balance. If one tenants ‘share’ of damages is more than their portion of deposit, it will be up to yourselves as tenants to reclaim the money off them if you wish.

Please do bear with us, this is an incredibly busy time. We have nearly 500 properties moving in and out in a very short space of time. The deposits are handled in order of move out date and we will respond to each of you. We aim to respond within 3 working days to each email, however please do bear with us, this could take longer depending on the number of queries you have.

No problem! Just reply to let us know, we will then put this on hold until we hear from you and we’ll look after your deposit until the issue is resolved.

Unfortunately, we are not able to get involved in internal disputes such as issues with bills, nor are we able to deduct these from the deposit. We do suggest that tenants take our bills-included package to avoid any issues with bills at the end of the tenancy.

Most tenancy agreements are joint and severally liable. This means the deposit is classed as one joint deposit. Although we allowed you to pay your shares of this individually, we are unable to send individual portions of deposits back. Any communal damage is down to you as tenants to resolve and to allocate costs depending on who caused that damage. The full breakdown will be provided for you to discuss amongst yourselves and the full cost of repairs deducted from your joint deposit. The only exceptions to this are if only one tenant is moving out or if you are on your own separate tenancy agreement. Then of course, the one tenant will have their share of the deposit returned to them.

The inventories were checked by yourselves to confirm that everything listed in them is correct. You had 7 days at the start of the tenancy to notify us of any discrepancies in the document otherwise it is deemed to be an accurate representation of how you received the property. Unfortunately, if there is no evidence that the damage existed at the start of your tenancy, it will be chargeable to yourselves. If you have any queries, do let us know and we will be happy to discuss this with you.

If a minority of tenants return their keys at the end of their tenancy, we will normally need to change the locks to ensure the next tenants’ safety. Whilst we do understand that it is normal for tenants to lose their keys, we can only be sure that no third party has unauthorised access to the property if we change the lock.

If an item is listed in the inventory but missing from the check-out report, the landlord has every right to charge the cost towards replacing the item although they do not actually have to replace it, as it is an asset they have lost.

Unfortunately not. You are allowed access to the property (either yourself or via a third-party) during the dates of your tenancy. After you have vacated the property, any access or works need to be arranged by the Landlord or Coapt.

We always look for the most economical option when remedying any dilapidations. As cleaning is cheaper than replacing a mattress, we will try this in the first instance. Unfortunately, sometimes stains won’t come out and the mattress may need to be replaced after it has been cleaned. If it is excessively stained and beyond cleaning, we will arrange for a replacement and not attempt to clean it.

We recommend at the start of tenancies that mattress protectors are used to avoid these issues.

Our Deposit Return team have been on various deposit courses run by My Deposits adjudicators so that they can fairly apportion cost depending on the damage caused. This includes cigarette burns, iron burns and marked furniture etc.

Like all contractor charges, there is an element of labour involved. Not only to fit the light bulb but to make the trip to buy the bulb needed. To avoid this cost for labour, it is advised that you always replace all non-working bulbs prior to your check-out.

Lightbulbs can stop working at any time. Unfortunately, we do have instances where lightbulbs that were working one day, are not working the next day. The condition of the property is relayed at the official check-out, so any bulbs that are not working at this time will need to be replaced at the tenants cost, provided they were stated as working when the original inventory was constructed.

It would be excessive for the landlord to replace a whole carpet due to a small number of burn marks. Therefore, every time a tenant contributed to the damage of a carpet the landlord should only charge an apportionment charge for that specific damage. Once the carpet is so badly damaged through numerous damages, over various tenancies, he will then pay for the replacement himself, having received various contributions over the years.

Of course! If you wish to see an invoice of works then our Deposit Return team can provide this. In most instances, an invoice will be available. However if the landlord has decided to only charge an apportionment charge for damage, then works will not have been carried out and therefore no invoice will be available.

Grease marks are not classed as fair wear and tear as it is avoidable damage. The landlord is not obliged to provide headboards and it is the responsibility of the tenant to either ensure they are not marking the walls with grease or that they make good any grease marks prior to checkout by repainting the wall.