Student rentals - holding deposits and room sizes

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My son is at a London uni and looking for a flat with friends. They put down a holding deposit of one week's rent on the first flat they viewed, and have been sent forms to fill in for identity checks etc. My son will be naming me as a guarantor, so has sent me the paperwork. It says they will lose the deposit if they don't proceed, but get it back if the landlord doesn't proceed. In the meantime, they have seen another (better) flat with the same agent. My questions are:

1. For the first flat, is it possible/likely that the agent has actually taken holding deposits from multiple groups, and that the flat will go to the first group that completes the paperwork, or perhaps the group that the landlord likes best?

1. If they go and see the second flat with the same agent, and put a holding deposit down on that too, will it automatically be seen as pulling out of the arrangement for the first flat?

I don't know if they should be committing to one flat at a time, or having multiple irons in the fire? But, if the latter, then its important that it is the landlord that cancels the arrangements rather than them, which depends on whether multiple holding deposits have been taken.

Also, both flats have 5 bedrooms, two of which are too small for a desk. My son says they intend to swap rooms half way through the year, to mitigate this. If he is without a desk he will work in a library, coffee shop etc. This obviously worries me, but he says that its normal for London student rentals.

Any advice, thoughts and experiences welcome!

You need to let him sort this OP. It's part of growing up

I am the guarantor. I'm not sorting it out for him. I want to understand more about what financial commitments he is making with the money I am guaranteeing.

Independence is a gradual process. You can let them jump in at the deep end and turn your back while they sink or swim, or you keep an eye on them from a respectful distance in case they need you to hand them a flotation device. I'm in the second camp.

I can't help you with your question as I don't require a holding deposit, though I've only rented to one student at a time so it never arise.
But I'd just like to say I agree with you - maturing is gradual and you can't anticipate all issues. A helping hand or direction is always a parents prerogative, no matter what age the child is.

No I’d imagine the holding deposit so was they would “get” it and they won’t have taken loads. If they want to swap they’ll likely lose it and need to pay again

Not sure either but suspect the landlord/agency wouldn't be sending out paperwork etc to more than 1 group at the time.
So not a question of who completes the paperwork the first "wins".
It took a while to go through the whole process of completing the guarantor paperwork.

Are the rooms really so small you can't fit in a desk?, I did stay in a room with bed, desk and when I had a suitcase open on the floor I wasn't able to open the door at the same time.
Dd complained when there wasn't a table in their sitting room so got that installed.

Long time london renter here (including many student digs). It’s a ‘holding’ deposit because they ‘hold’ the property for that group and do not offer to anyone else so no, no one else has paid to hold the property. Same agent doesn’t mean same landlord so they would pay a different holding deposit for different property and most likely loose the original one, and yes it would very likely be seen as pulling out. It is not the done thing to put multiple holding deposits down.

Holding deposits are most common in student digs as it is essentially a financial promise that you want the property but allows you to get your finances in order ready to pay the full deposit and arrange guarantor as most students don’t have 5/6 weeks rent on hand immediately so need to talk to parents/withdraw from savings etc.

It also wouldn’t give a particularly good impression to the agents/landlord I don’t think as it comes across flaky.

Also re the desk issue. Quite common in London to have tiny box rooms, there are several very small laptop desk options from IKEA which usually fit in box rooms. Most students I know ended up working in the library anyway as you could spread out more than at home so that’s not a major issue. And unless they’re an art student can probably work on a laptop in bed if necessary. The solution we had wasn’t to mess about swapping rooms but just to divvy the rent up, biggest room paid the most rent and so on down to smallest room and least rent so there was some benefit to taking a smaller room. Different people have different priorities so those looking to save money didn’t mind!

Ds shared with 4 others and after 1 year (out if 2) they did swap around. Well, the biggest and smallest room swapped around. DC had the middle room so stayed put. All paid same account.

Thanks all. I do hope you're right that only one holding deposit was taken. I also hope they stick with flat #1, especially as I spent several hours uploading bank statements and pay slips last night for the guarantor reference. 😬 Flat #2 does look better, but more expensive.