| Tenant guide |
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This guide comprises helpful guidance for all parties and clicking on the section heading below will take you to the section you require. Throughout our guide we make reference to our cost sheet. A copy can be supplied on request by phoning 01622 620260. Tenants' Information
Unemployed, Housing Benefits & Guarantors See the section on Guarantor's Information. Some of our Landlords will accept Housing Benefit's although we, as a company will not accept the Home Bond scheme. You will need a Guarantor if you are on Benefit or your income does not equate to 30 times the rent. The Guarantor's income needs to equate to 40 times the rent. Alternatively, if getting a Guarantor is not an option for you we are able to accept six months rent in advance instead. We will charge an administration fee once you have seen a property and decide to take it. Once paid, we will take the property off the market. These fees depend on how many people want to apply for the property. We currently charge £150 for one reference; £250 for two references and £300 for three references. These charges include VAT. One Guarantor’s reference can be run with no additional costs. However, if we need to do two Guarantor’s references we will charge an extra £35 + VAT. Please note that although the property will be taken off the market for you, everything is subject to contract and no exact dates can be relied upon. Please do not book days off from work or removal vans until we have given you an actual moving date. We can, however, work towards a date for you but this is never a date cast in stone and should never be treated as such. On or close to your move in date our Negotiator will make an appointment to visit you to run through the Inventory. There is also a Schedule of Condition which you will need to sign to confirm that you agree with the condition of the property. The deposit required on any letting will be one and a half months' rent. Deposits are held with the Deposit Protection Service which is the Government custodial service. This is the only scheme that protects the Landlord and the Tenant. We, as an agent, do not hold any deposit monies in any Page & Wells accounts. In some cases, we may offer an interim inspection or pre-check out. This is available by request and you will be advised as to what you would need to do to minimise any deductions from your deposit. Tenants “leaving information” will also be sent to you. This offers a complete breakdown of exactly what you need to do to prepare the property to be handed back to us. With fully managed properties a member of staff will visit you on a quarterly basis to check you are maintaining the property. On check out, the same document that you checked in with, of which you will be provided a copy, will be brought back to the property and again our negotiator will go through it with you to check that the property is in the same condition as when you moved in. Any discrepancies will be negotiated between you and the Negotiator and finalised with the Landlord as to what level of compensation is to be received by the Landlord from your deposit. No monies can be released to the Landlord without your prior consent. When a figure has been reached that everyone is happy with, the amount to come back to you will be released from the Deposit Protection Service via the internet. You will have been issued a repayment ID when you moved into the property and they will have issued one to us as well. The two numbers that are issued for repayment from the Deposit Protection Service are not the same number. We will release the monies back into the system and you will then go into the site and claim your monies back with your repayment ID number. It is important that you keep your number in a safe place once you have received this from the Deposit Protection Service shortly after move in. More information can be found on the Deposit Protection Service website at; www.depositprotection.com We do ask Rent Shield to call you with a free quote for insurance of your contents. These are competitive, no obligation quotes and you are at liberty to seek your own insurance. You must ensure that whoever you take a policy with, your liability for damage towards the Landlord's goods is covered. We are not asking you to insure the Landlord's belongings, just your liability for any damage to the Landlord's goods. We will ask for a copy of the policy before you are given the keys to the property to ensure this cover is correct for you. If the policy is not correct, keys may not be able to be issued to you on that day. More information about Rent Shield can be found on their website; www.rentshielddirect.com Some of our Landlords will accept pets. We do however ask for an additional deposit of £100 which will go towards any damage caused by the pet. It is a good idea to ask before you see a property if the Landlord will accept pets. Pets are not allowed in flats or apartments as the head lease very rarely permits pets. If you have moved into a property and would like to get a pet please obtain permission, in writing, from your Landlord before you acquire an animal. Always notify your negotiator if you are intending to house a pet in one of our properties. If we realise a pet is living in the property and permission is not sought from the Landlord this would mean you are in breach of the tenancy agreement and the Landlord could consider re-possessing the property. We expect rent to be paid by Standing Order three days before your rent due date to ensure that the rent is with us in cleared funds on the day your rent is due. If you are paying six months' rent in advance, the whole amount will be sent to the Landlord unless the Landlord otherwise instructs us.
Guarantor’s Information
We require our Guarantors to be earning forty times the rent. This sounds an enormous amount but on a rent of £700 a month, a Guarantor would need to be earning £28,000. A Guarantor must also own their own property and have been a UK citizen for three years or more. If you miss a rental payment we will look to the Guarantor to pay the full amount of rent. All Tenancies are joint and several; which means if you are a Guarantor you will stand for all Tenants (if there were more than one) not just one specific tenant. The full rent would therefore be payable by yourself. If you were also unable to pay the rent in full a charge may be placed against your property so that if it were sold those monies would still go to the Landlord. This is not a role to be entered into lightly. Further information on any of the above issues can be obtained from Helen Simmons, Sarah Howes or Caron Willis on 01622 620260 or lettings@page-wells.co.uk |
