Paying deposit and fees before signing a tenancy agreement?

[napkin]

I have been told by my estate agent that I will not be given a tenancy agreement until the moving in date to the house I will be renting in 2 weeks. They have told us we need to pay all our outstanding fees 48hrs prior to moving in. Do I have rights to see and sign a tenancy agreement before handing over any money? Bit worried about it all.

i dont know but i have stupidly paid a deposit on a rented house today we wont be moving in to until 26 june no paperwork as of yet but done via bank so least we have a trail.

going to speak to landlord later to ask for something in writing to confirm we have paid deposit and first rent will be paid 26 june 2015.

in all fairness landlord seemed nice and trustworthy and is doing us a favour letting us pay first rent when we actually move in so hopefully ok.

good luck. hope someone can offer some good advice soon.

I've always done it this way when renting through a real estate as they don't hold cash in the office. I pay the $$ into their account and present the receipt at the office before sighting and signing the tenancy agreement.

I know what legally can't be in a lease so am happy to do it this way. In fact the last house I lived in I hadn't even seen the property as the one I was supposed to move into wasn't ready and they did me a favor renting me a different property that they had.

I have always paid the deposit before getting and signing the contract. If they don't let the house to you, the money would be refundable.

Think about it. You need tenants. Would you really want to wait until moving day to learn that they couldn't pay the deposit? Or weren't going to show as they had found something else and had nothing to lose?

You can ask to see the agreement, but from your perspective why would you want to sign it before the day you successfully get given the keys? (I once turned up to collect keys and found the house wasn't ready. They moved faster when I said okay we'll just sit in your office until you sort it.)

All of this is perfectly sensible to protect both sides.

I was just concerned about not agreeing to something written in the tenancy agreement and not being able to do anything about it as i've already paid them the money. Just don't know my rights as I have never privately rented before.

Insist on seeing it. They will have a standard form one they can send in advance even if they've not had time to type in your full name yet. Also you want to see what it says about the rent and all that kind of thing. It might be for double the rent or terminable on a day's notice or joint occupation with a family of quads and 2 donkeys. You need to read it carefully before you part with any money. You wouldn't exchange contracts to buy a house and hand over the deposit until you or your lawyer had read the contract and checked the purchase price etc was right. Same with renting.