Need some help?

Check out our info pages for Tenants and Landlords for a general overview of each user experience.

If you're looking for more information on rent now, our tenancy creation service, take a look on our Rent Now Information page.

Your first listing is either free, or for £49 includes listing on portals including Rightmove and Zoopla. You can access all our tenancy creation features (with advertising thrown in!) for only £69. You can also earn free advertising credits by introducing friends to OpenRent!

And that's it. No admin fees, no contract signing fees, no hidden charges.

Click here to see our pricing page

None! No admin fees, no contract signing fees, no hidden charges.

Click here to see our pricing page

Beyond advertising, OpenRent ensures tenancies are safe and the platform eases the rest of the tenant-find process. We call this Rent Now, and you have access to it as soon as you list with us.

Our Rent Now service makes creating your new tenancy a breeze. We take care of referencing, contracts and deposit handling all via our secure online platform, and we'll send you an email and SMS whenever your input is required.

To get started, tenants just need to click the green Rent Now button on your property listing page and pay a holding deposit of one week's rent - we then send you an SMS and Email, and you can accept any application to get started, or reject if you would prefer to keep looking for other tenants.

Once an application is accepted, you can ask us to obtain references or go straight to contract signing. If you opt for references (over 90% of our landlords do), we'll get the tenants fully checked for you - you can decide if you are happy or not with the references that come back. If successful, we then help get the contracts signed, holding deposit registered, and your tenancy set up.

Rent Now costs landlords just £69, and advertising (usually £49) is thrown in free if you pay for everything upfront.

We have a full step-by-step guide to Rent Now here.

Peace of mind: You can relax knowing everything is taken care of. OpenRent has let more properties than any other agency in the UK since 2015, so you're in safe hands.

Legal Security: Our advice, ever evolving AST, and deposit protection guarantee mean you aren't left with a large legal bill for not complying with the latest in tenancy law.

Speed and flexibility: Our team chase all parties at each step, and the whole process can be managed online 24/7. Holding deposit placement to key handover can now happen in hours, not days.

Tenants feel safer: They will be handing money over to the UK's largest agent and a platform that has set up thousands of tenancies, and can pay by card or bank transfer.

A professional service: Make it clear you are a professional landlord with the support of the largest agency in the UK, and stand out from other landlords.

You remain in control. We will provide you with the full reference reports (if requested), you can configure the contract as you please, and you always have the final say on any tenants.

As a landlord, you can relax knowing everything is taken care of. OpenRent will inform you of anything you need to do each step of the way. We not only make sure you are legally compliant, provide industry best in class referencing and contracts, but make most of the work involved in setting up a tenancy disappear.

Everything can be done online 24/7, in a seamless and speedy fashion from the comfort of your home.

To start Rent Now, the tenant needs to go to the OpenRent page of the property they are interested in and click the green Rent Now button on that page. Once they do this and place a holding deposit of one week's rent, we automatically notify the landlord by email and SMS that the holding deposit has been placed, and advise on the next steps.

If you're a landlord and you would like to prompt a prospective tenant to initiate Rent Now: Get Started Here

Placing a holding deposit of one week's rent tells us tenants are serious about renting a property. Landlords are immediately notified, and asked to make a decision on how they would like to proceed. If the landlord accepts, it allows us to begin the Rent Now process so we can stop promoting the property to other tenants and start arranging referencing and contracts. If the landlord does not accept, the application is cancelled and tenants are refunded.

As the name suggests, this is a deposit and is not a charge or fee. If you want to know what exactly happens with the money, scroll here.

The holding deposit is placed towards the first month's rent upon successful contract signing.

If the tenants fail referencing and can't secure appropriate guarantors, or the landlord isn't happy with these tenants, the holding deposit is returned to the tenants. You can read more about refunds in this Help Centre Article.

If the tenants decide they no longer want the property, the landlord can make claim to the holding deposit to cover the cost of the property being off the market.

We do this to protect tenants and landlords, as well as ease the pain for both parties.

Landlords must comply with frequently changing laws on handling deposits. If deposits are filed incorrectly, filed late or not filed at all then landlords can face hefty fines of up to 3 times the deposit amount. OpenRent can remove both the risk and the hassle.

For tenants, it means you only need to trust OpenRent, and not every private landlord out there. We make sure the deposit is protected, and send you through the details. At the end of the tenancy, you then know you will receive a fair amount of your deposit back.

When we process and protect deposits on behalf of our customers, they are still able to refer any disputes to the deposit scheme for adjudication where needed.

Any deposit paid through OpenRent will be held by OpenRent and protected with mydeposits. mydeposits is one of three government backed deposit protection providers and landlords are legally required to protect deposits in a government approved scheme.

At this time our Rent Now service is unable to support either of the other deposit providers. However, subject to eligibility landlords can choose to offer a deposit replacement alternative with Reposit.

It is a requirement for all tenancy deposits to be protected by a government approved deposit protection scheme; you can find more details about government guidelines here.

If using Rent Now, OpenRent will register the deposit with the scheme on your behalf. Landlords can't choose other scheme providers.

For more information about the difference between cash deposits and deposit replacement schemes click here.

Within Rent Now, we handle all initial funds so that we can guarantee that the tenancy created is legally sound and all legal requirements have been fulfilled.

For more info on how we handle rent payments, see here.

Landlords are free to decide the length of the fixed term - this can be as short as 1 month.

However, in England, the law states that landlords cannot legally regain possession of a property in the first 6 months, so it’s usually advisable to set at least a 6 month term.

More information can be found here.

For properties in England, you can view a copy of our standard AST, or our AST for shared houses where the landlord wants each tenant to sign a separate agreement/contract.

This page introduces our AST: OpenRent Tenancy Agreement.

This blog post introduces our ASTs and explains the differences between the two contracts in more detail.

Properties in Wales need to use an Occupation Contract from December 2022, you can view a copy of our standard Occupation Contract, or our Occupation Contract for shared houses where the landlord wants each contract-holder to sign a separate agreement/contract.

This page introduces our Occupation Contract: OpenRent Occupation Contract.

More information on the Occupation Contracts can be found here.

For full guidance on what to do when your tenancy is expiring, including renewal options, please read this guide: What happens at the end of my contract's fixed term?

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, where everyone was honest, we could obviously remove this from our system. As a company, we gain nothing by holding onto this money, it is simply an administrative cost and burden.

Digital signatures are becoming commonplace with online and remote transactions in the UK. They not only make the process faster and easier, but they are legally binding and admissible in court - this was established by the Electronic Communications Act 2000 and subsequent EU Directives. See this guidance from GOV.UK for more detail.

Having said that - our contract is available for download as well, so you can ask your tenants/landlord to sign it personally (as well as online) if you prefer.

When you submit your bank details to us via the website, these are securely saved to our site. They are visible when you log in to your OpenRent account, and to tenants with whom you create tenancies. The details can also be accessed by OpenRent staff and are used for making rent payments to your bank account.

All online payments are made via secure HTTPS.

Yes, we are a proud member of The Property Ombudsman and ARLA Propertymark

We are also a registered agent in Scotland with registration number LARN1809026, and in Wales with Rent Smart licence number #LR-75033-48352.

In addition, we are a member of the government-authorised Propertymark Client Money Protection scheme which ensures any landlord or tenant funds we hold are fully protected.

Yes. All holding deposit, rent and deposit money is held in a segregated client account and is protected under the government-authorised Propertymark Client Money Protection scheme. You can find details of Propertymark’s rules in regard to client money protection on their website.

Firstly, we've been trading since September 2011 - so we've already been around for over 13.2 years, and don't intend to go anywhere!

However, we understand it makes sense to be cautious, and have developed our system to mean your tenancy will continue regardless of whether we do.

• Our contract is between the landlord and the tenant. All of OpenRent's obligations with respect to the AST cease once the rent payment has been transferred.
• Our contract automatically turns into a periodic tenancy, meaning the AST is still valid and enforceable as long as the tenants remain in the property.
• Your deposit will be protected by a government approved deposit scheme - learn more here: Deposit Protection. This will ensure the deposit is secure for the duration of the tenancy.
• Any rent money before the tenancy is started , or deposit money during the tenancy,is held in a segregated client account until it is paid out and is protected under the government-authorised Propertymark Client Money Protection scheme.
• If using our rent collection service, funds are stored in separate accounts per tenancy, and then passed through to the landlord directly (ie. not held by OpenRent). You would simply need to ask your tenant to update their bank details in the event this service ceased to exist.

As with any agent, high street or online, the ultimate responsibility for the tenancy always lies with the landlord.

Thanks for letting us know!

But seriously, we have several lines of defence to combat rogue landlords, and we make sure no landlords have received any of the tenant's money until they are moved in. We handle the deposit and the first month's rent for this very reason!

Sorry, we can only accept listings from private landlords. Although if you are a company/housing association that owns the properties you are letting, we can help too.

You should probably check out our About page.

We use Stripe who are one of the biggest card processors in the world. We don't store any of your financial information on our site.

On OpenRent, we have the option to log-in using the faster, and more secure method of clicking on your email provider.

This means you do not actually require a password - you can log into the site by clicking the same button, anytime and from anywhere. The way it works is that we communicate with your email provider, check you are logged in there, and they provide a "token" to verify you.

This is not only safer, it's much easier. You can see more information here: OpenID Standard

If you ever did want to set your password for any reason, you can do so here: Reset Password

Landlords:

OpenRent requires a verified UK phone number to add new property adverts and to buy certain landlord products.

Landlords need a UK-based number since they need to be situated in the UK in order to show tenants around the property and manage the property once a tenant is found. If you are a landlord abroad, and have someone doing viewings for you in the UK, you can supply their number.

Tenants:

OpenRent requires a verified UK phone number to arrange a viewing, pass tenant screening, or place a holding deposit.

Tenants need a UK-based number to book a viewing online, as tenants must be in the UK to conduct a viewing. If tenant screening is activated by the landlord, then you must have a UK number to contact them, otherwise you are free to ask the landlord any questions without verifying your number.

There is no way to bypass this requirement and we cannot book a viewing or contact the landlord on your behalf without this.

These requirements help us reduce spam, for landlords and tenants alike. And nobody likes spam!

A landlord gets a 'verified' badge on their OpenRent profile when they use Rent Now to set up a tenancy.

Rent Now is OpenRent's secure, fast, and simple tenancy creation process. In Rent Now, we handle all tenant funds, ensure the tenancy is legally binding, and that the move-in happens smoothly.

We have identified seven key areas that can make a critical difference in improving the number of enquiries you get for your listing and we've written a guide for each of these! You can find this all here.

Using our masses of data from all our properties ever advertised we've come up with a calculator that can help guide you to the right rental price and ensure tenant demand.

OpenRent Property Valuation Calculator

OpenRent has never allowed landlords to charge tenant admin fees. From June 1st 2019, this became the law in England, following similar laws in Scotland, with Wales following shortly after.

For a bit of history on the historic change to tenants fees in the UK, please see our blog post here:

🎉 Fee Freedom Day: 1st June 2019 🎉

An Admin fee is defined as a one-off fee for viewing the property, applying for the property, or setting up the tenancy. This does not include bills, council tax, rent or deposits - of course you are welcome to include the cost of any administrative fees associated with a new tenancy in the monthly rent.

We understand there is more work beyond our £69 fee, namely conducting the viewings. However, this, and anything else considered a reasonable fee (gas certificates, electrical certificates, inventory fee, contract signing fee, check-in fee, check-out fee, etc...) are, in effect, one off costs which can be included in the rental amount.

The landlord is in full control of how much rent to charge, and the rent should incorporate the costs of setting up the tenancy.

We partner with the most popular property sites in the UK which receive literally millions of property searches per month, giving you the best possible chance of finding your ideal tenant. Only registered agents can list so you won't be able to do this directly as a landlord.

With OpenRent, you're in total control of exactly how many of our services you want to use. Whether you only want to use our referencing services, order a safety certificate, or would like us set up the tenancy using our Rent Now package, you only need to use the services you want.

Landlords who find their tenants via OpenRent advertising don't have to use Rent Now to create the tenancy - they are free to set up the tenancy however they like.

So if you only want to introduce you to new tenants, that's fine. You can use OpenRent for advertising and retain access to any of our other services that you may require, including referencing, rent guarantee insurance, inventories, safety certificates and more.

Click here to see our pricing page

If you've already got photos of your property it will take less than 5 minutes. The current record stands at 81.2 seconds.

We certainly won't stop you! There is no limit to how early you can list a property with us as long as you let us know when it is available.

What you should bear in mind is that your best exposure on property portals will be when you first list - this is because your property will appear as new, and all tenants with search alerts will be notified only once (when you first list). We recommend listing 4 weeks before the property will become vacant and discuss this further on our blog.

We will advertise your property until let, but please note we do have a fair usage policy. See our pricing page for more information.

Calls and emails from interested tenants which come via Rightmove, Zoopla or any other portal are handled by us. If the tenant would like a viewing we will ask you to contact them directly to arrange that, if they have any questions we will pass those on too - but using our masked email service as described below.
To help arrange viewings, once you've spoken to the tenant you can inform us of the viewing date/time - and we'll not only inform the tenant, but remind them 2 hours before the viewing (to make sure they show up!). This also helps with re-arranging times, and cancellations.
Questions which come via OpenRent will be sent directly to you, our systems will mask your email address for a much greater level of privacy. You can reply directly to these emails, and OpenRent will pass your responses on to the tenant without revealing your private information (unless you explicitly want to of course!).

Most landlords ask tenants to pay a deposit before they move in. They may be entitled to keep all or part of it if tenants:

• leave the property owing rent
• damage the property
• do not pay their bills

There is more information for landlords on Directgov.

The main terms in your AST are set by the details you provide when you create your listing - price, deposit, contract length, etc. The move-in date is agreed once a tenant clicks "Rent Now". You can change any of these details when drafting the contract at the relevant stage of Rent Now.

We advise against adding custom clauses, or using the custom clause section to overrule any clauses in our standard contract - however, we realise sometimes landlords want this flexibility, and therefore we have enabled the adding of custom clauses. Note that OpenRent will not look over clauses added, or ensure they are legally sound, so use at your own risk! Our general policy is to provide an AST that is broad reaching and which reflects industry best practice in terms of protecting the interests of both parties. As such, we don't feel custom clauses should be required.

If you did want to add custom clauses, heeding the warning above, you can do so at any point during the contract signing phase of Rent Now - this function is available under the "Advanced Contract Settings". See our Help Centre article for more information.

Our tenant referencing offers fully comprehensive background checks on tenants.

This includes, but is not limited to, employer references, linked addresses, identity & fraud information, CCJ's, decrees and court information, affordability ratings, and previous landlord references.

Learn More About Referencing

Following the Tenant Fees Act (2019), references are always paid for by the landlord. Charging tenants for references is now illegal, and as such, we can no longer charge tenants our reasonable £20 referencing fee. See Why can't I charge admin fees? for more information.

Tenant references are paid for in two different ways - depending on if the landlord is using Rent Now to set up the tenancy, or plan to set up the tenancy themselves.

Using Rent Now:
To use Rent Now a landlord just needs to direct their tenants to their listing page on OpenRent. From there, the tenants can click on the green "Rent Now" button and you'll be able to proceed to request referencing immediately. The landlord will pay £20 per reference requested. There is no charge to the tenant per reference.

On a standalone basis:
If the landlord doesn't wish to use Rent Now, they can order references separately. This gives landlords access to the same comprehensive referencing OpenRent uses within Rent Now, and is priced the same at £20 per reference requested. You can initiate ordering of references by following the link below.

Learn More About Referencing

Yes, Rent Now gives you access to an ongoing rent collection service.

We provide tenants with a unique bank account for your tenancy, and they pay into that. As soon as the rent hits the account, we instantly notify you and the payment is sent to you the same working day.

There's no holding period: as soon as the rent is paid to us, we pay it to you, automatically.

We'll send you a brief confirmation email with each payment we make to you, so your records are up-to-date without you needing to check your bank.

If your tenant is late on rent, we'll notify you automatically, and chase the tenant on your behalf.

If, for whatever reason, your tenant stops paying, we have legal partners who will be happy to help.

The rent collection service is completely optional. You don't need to use it if you'd rather give tenants your personal bank details directly, and you can opt out at any point.

We certainly do. Rent guarantee insurance is offered upon the successful completion of referencing.

To qualify for Rent Guarantee Insurance (RGI), either the combined affordability of comprehensively referenced tenants must cover the monthly rent, or any comprehensively referenced guarantors must have sufficient affordability to cover any shortfall for tenants that aren't comprehensively referenced, fail referencing, or cannot afford their equal rent share.

Our policies have no excess, and only cost £214 (including IPT) for 12 months, which covers you against non-payment of rents and legal expenses you may incur with this tenancy. A tiny cost for the peace of mind it provides with new tenants.

We certainly do. We've partnered with industry leading Gas and Electric experts who provide discounts for our high volumes, meaning not only can we provide the highest quality products on the market, but at extremely low prices.

A Gas Safety Certificate starts at £45, with a full boiler service, and PAT testing available as extras.

Order Safety Certificates

We certainly do!

DIY Inventory Template: for landlords wanting to save costs, and keen to do the inventory themselves we have a downloadable template (also in .doc format) to get you started. We would always recommend an independent professional where possible in the event the inventory is required in a deposit dispute - but want to make sure landlords in the worst case have some kind of inventory in place!

Professional Service: We've partnered with some of the best inventory clerks nationwide to provide you with discounts for our high volumes, meaning once again our prices are extremely low and our service levels extremely high!

An inventory, also known as schedule of condition report, starts at £85, with a check-in service available for only an additional £40.

Learn More About OpenRent Inventories Now

Rather just get on with it? Go ahead and book below:

Order Inventory Now

Yes - OpenRent supports renting rooms as well as whole properties. We offer the same level of support and tools for landlords regardless of whether they rent out their properties by the room or as a whole property.

Learn more about advertising a room to rent with OpenRent.

We are often asked - can my property title be changed to include a different place name? Or why doesn't my property appear for the search term X. Here we will attempt to explain the difference in search across the portals.

OpenRent, Rightmove, Zoopla and pretty much every portal:

On most portals, a search works by the user entering a location. This is then translated into a search area, if your property is within this area, then your property will appear. Hence, the most important aspect of making sure your advert appears for appropriate searches, is to check its location on the map is correct. This applies to both OpenRent, and your listings on the other portals (Rightmove/Zoopla). If the location on the map is correct, then tenants will be able to find it, regardless of the title.

Please Note that it may take up to 1 hour to appear in some OpenRent searches after listing (due to caching), and 3-6 hours before appearing on Rightmove, Zoopla and other partner portals.

We have a set of questions and answers designed specifically for Mortgage Lenders which should address the points they need to clarify. The landlord should combine this with documental proof and send it to the lender - this should be sufficient to constitute a Letting Certificate, but as processes can change we advise that you first check with your lender that this approach is sufficient to complete their letting certificate requirements.

Click here to download FAQ for Mortgage Lenders

Unfortunately we can't complete Letting Certificates directly since they ask us to certify aspects of the tenancy outside our control.

Of course! Just follow the usual process and create an advert, then once your advert is live, you can simply ask your tenants to place a holding deposit to initiate the Rent Now process.

Easy - just click here to begin your search and see the properties that are available.

Viewings are a matter of clicks away. Just click 'Book Viewing' on the listing page for the property you're interested in.

We'll then put you in direct contact with the landlord, as they handle enquiries from the outset and can discuss viewing availability with you.

You can become a verified tenant here to confirm your identity and affordability. This makes sure when you enquire about a property, that landlords can verify your application, not only speeding up the entire process but increasing your chances of finding your next home.

We recommend all tenants become verified before enquiring, and you can get started here.

We let landlords know as soon as a holding deposit is offered.

They have 4 days to make a decision and if 24 hours have passed without acceptance, tenants can cancel their application for a refund. If you have any follow-up questions at this stage, just drop them a message on the website.

First, make sure to give landlords 48 hours to respond to viewing requests. After this time, you can chase them by text or by going to your message thread and clicking the 'chase' button.

In the event a landlord remains unresponsive, be sure to let us know.

Tell us the postcode of your office/uni and how long you are prepared to travel to get there - we show you every property in our database within a max commute time of it by train, tube and walking times.

We have a basement full of elves with a map of London and a massive book of train timetables.

Although we have systems in place to verify that a landlord owns the property, setting up a tenancy directly with the landlord can risk the following:

• Stolen Funds - Transferring any funds directly to a landlord means they are unprotected by Rent Now, therefore if a landlord does not make clear how they intend to proceed we do not have control over releasing these funds back to you.
• Illegally Created Tenancy - There are certain legal requirements that landlords need to meet when creating a tenancy, such as registering the security deposit in a government approved scheme. Proceeding outside of Rent Now risks these requirements not being met and can jeopardise the tenancy as a whole, including your security deposit.
• Risk of Handing Over Sensitive Data - When proceeding outside of Rent Now we cannot guarantee the security of any personal data you provide to the landlord for referencing or any other reasons. All referencing ordered through OpenRent is handled securely on our website. You can see how OpenRent protects your data here.

With this said, many legitimate landlords do prefer to create tenancies themselves and do not encounter any of the issues above. You can see our full help centre article on this here.