Student paying year up front?

Student tenant considering paying rent upfront with questions about new rental rules.

by Readers Question

9:39 AM, 3rd February 2025, 1 year ago 22

Categories:

Advice Guest Authors HMO's & Student Lets Landlord News Landlords Questions Renters' Rights Bill

Hello, I have a question that hopefully someone can answer.

I have an overseas student tenant who is due to move into an HMO of mine in July. She has asked if she can pay the whole year up front.

This is not normally a problem and has always been the answer to an overseas guarantor which doesn’t guarantee anything.

With the new rules about to come in, will she be able to ask for a chunk of her money back so it is not in excess of one month rent?

And then, of course, I run the risk of her not paying, not having a guarantor and her not paying the rent?

Any thoughts?

Thank you,

Richard

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Tags: advance rent payments, HMO, renters rights bill, Student Housing, Student Tenants

Comments

Steve Rose

Member Since September 2024 - Comments: 95

4:04 PM, 4th February 2025, About 1 year ago

Reply to the comment left by Jason at 04/02/2025 – 14:22
No worries, I wasn’t criticising what you had done in the past, I was simply answering your question to Graham about where the legislation was. The system you have just described is not the same as the one Jo described earlier – yours is currently still legal.
But here’s the rub: I don’t doubt for a second that there are hundreds, if not thousands of tenants and landlords still happily using the old ‘rolling rent’ system. The problem only comes if the relationship breaks down.

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Tom Jenkin

Member Since March 2023 - Comments: 37

4:10 PM, 4th February 2025, About 1 year ago

Reply to the comment left by Steve Rose at 04/02/2025 – 16:04
Agree , I communicate regularly with this tenant, do a cple inspections a year .

And everytime we do a new tenancy agreement I stress she only needs to pay the rent by the due date .

She went on a career break a cple years ago to Australia and paid 3 months rent in advance to cover when she was away.

But I have been lucky I never had a tenant miss a rent payment, had a cple leave the property a tad tatty , but I don’t have the horror stories some people do .

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