Move-out procedure

1. Please leave on, or before the agreed date, as people will have been booked in to visit the property as soon as the day after to begin the change-over procedure.
2. Please leave your property / room, kitchen cupboard and fridge / freezer, (if applicable), cleared of all your possessions. Even valuable items of furniture or things you think the next tenant will like need to be removed unless agreed in writing with us. Please thoroughly clean throughout. If not cleaned, or if items are left that weren’t on your inventory, we may need to retain some (or all) of your damage deposit for specialist cleaning or removal & disposal, and if your deposit doesn’t cover those costs, we can request additional costs.
3. If you haven’t done so on the End-of-Tenancy form (above), please now let us know if there is any damage to anything in the property / room, fixtures, fittings, carpet or paintwork that needs to be fixed / touched up.
4. If you are leaving a shared house, please leave your keys in the top drawer in your room and leave your door unlocked. If you do not live in a shared house, please post the keys through the letterbox after locking the front door, unless alternative plans have been made with us.
5. Please turn the radiator(s) down and ensure windows are closed or secured on the “trickle vent” setting.
6. In shared houses, if the front door needs to be locked from the inside, where possible, please ask another tenant to lock the front door behind you when you leave.
7. Please let us know when you have left. Most of our shared houses have a WhatsApp group. We will remove you from the group if you were on it.
8. Normally the property / room is inspected the day you leave or the day after. The inspection is when any damage is noted and reported to our office, but if all is well and you have left without any rental debt, we will apply to release your deposit straight away. You should receive instructions from the deposit protection company explaining how it will be paid back to you. If you didn’t verify your e-mail with the deposit company at the start of your tenancy, or you have forgotten your login details, please contact them for assistance. The damage deposit schemes we use are MyDeposits and TDS. It’s possible you opted for our “no deposit” scheme, called Reposit. You don’t receive a refund of the scheme fee you paid for Reposit as it is an insurance policy., not a damage deposit scheme. We are here to assist if you experience any issues.
9. If you have over-paid your rent, we will refund you the additional amount. We will need your bank details for this, (if you didn’t put them on the form above).
10. As a matter of course, we do not forward post. If there is something you require, let us know and if we can find it, we will forward it to you. Otherwise we will normally stamp it with “Return to Sender” and put it back into the post box.

Ending your tenancy before your contract has completed

The standard minimum contract length for our tenants is six months, so this means that even if you move out part-way through that six months, the contract officially requires you to pay up until the final day of that six months before you can be released from it. However, life happens! Sometimes there may be events or circumstances in your life that mean you’d find it hard to complete your tenancy contract with us. For these scenarios, we will try to help you leave your contract by finding a replacement tenant. We will advertise the vacancy and do viewings as normal. If you’re in a shared house, we may also ask your housemates for referrals if they know anyone.

There are costs we will incur that relate to us finding a replacement tenant, which you will be asked to cover:

1. End-of-tenancy clean to augment the clean you do when you vacate the property/room
2. The cost of a new mattress protector (for HMO rooms only: you can take the old one with you if you wish)
3. The cost of advertising your room / property
4. The cost of doing viewings for prospective tenants
5. Credit checks for new tenant applicants (may be more than one, especially if they require a guarantor)
6. Referencing for new tenant applicants / guarantors
7. Contract fees for the successful new tenant applicant(s)
8. Deposit protection for the new tenant(s)
9. The cost of checking in the new tenant, (checklists, inventory and schedule of condition)
10. In addition to all the above, there is a lot of internal paperwork and time required to change tenancies

These costs are capped by us at £300 even if they go over, but you are asked to pay these costs, since we are unable to recover them any other way. It is payable when you request to break your contract and we won’t be able to proceed with the contract-break request until we receive the money. Please also note that payment of the £300 does not mean you have been released from your contract, it is to enable us to find and secure a new tenant to replace you. Once we have done that, the moment new tenant has signed their contract with us, we will write to you, confirming that you are now released from your contract and we will refund any rent you have paid beyond their move-in date.

Speaking of rent, in addition to the£300 fee, you will need to continue paying your rent up until the day before the new tenant moves in, which hopefully won’t be long. During this time you will still have access to the property and you may keep your keys, as you are still officially a tenant. However, we ask for your assistance in conducting viewings in the property during this time.

After we have released you from your contract, we will refund your damage deposit in full unless there are any damages or rent arrears, as mentioned above. As mentioned, we will also refund any rent you have paid us for the period after the new tenant has moved in.

Whatever happens, we will stay in communication with you all the way through the process to keep you informed so you can plan.

If you would like to end your tenancy early or you would like to discuss any of the items above, please contact us.