Renting without a deposit

[JamesCarter_Brum]

I've done both over the years across my places, and honestly the deposit itself matters less than the paperwork around it. The one time I had a proper dispute, it wasn't the deposit that won it — it was the inventory.

If you're going to go without one, I'd say the documentation matters even more, because you've got nothing held back to fall back on. Get a proper independent inventory done at check-in with dated photos of everything, and book a mid-term inspection a few months in. It catches the small stuff — limescale, gardens going wild, scuffs on walls — before it becomes a checkout argument, and it shows the tenant you're paying attention. My inventory clerk handles mine and it's saved me more than one painful end-of-tenancy conversation.

On the money side, motorbiking's right — skimming a bit off the rent each month would count as an unprotected deposit, so don't do that. If you want a buffer without the deposit scheme paperwork, price the rent accordingly and keep your own reserve. And however well you get on with a tenant, get the guarantor agreement done properly. Good relations don't survive a trashed kitchen.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

but also had developed a serious weight issue...had fallen into very bad habits despite being a sound lad.

You have a very patronising attitude to those you see as being beneath you.

You're a landlord, not the lord of the manor. Stick to repairing stuff, obeying the law and running a business, keep the heck away from tenants' private lives.

If the law says the deposit needs to be protected then those are the rules so obey them.