Letting our house without an agent

[Helennn]

We are moving soon for work reasons and are looking to let our house out privately to try to save the agents' fees.

Can anybody tell me what they have paid up-front when they rented a property, or any landlords able to help? An agent advised us to ask for 1.5 months rent as deposit as we have a new kitchen, fire etc, but do they pay 1 or 2 months rent in advance?

We have somebody looking tomorrow so need some advice, or a good web-site to look at!

Many thanks

The standard here is one month's rent in advance, and the same again as deposit.

Thanks to you both, getting a bit nervous now. Just off to paint ds' bedroom!

If you're not going to be within spitting distance of your home after you've moved I think you're making a mistake not using an agent.... at least the first time around. Agents will vet tenants thoroughly, can attend if there are problems, are responsible for collecting the money and a host of other things. I have seen a few horror stories when tenants are awkward... at least one house totally ransacked, for example.

We don't use and we are 12 thousand miles away from our house.

You just need to have local tradespeople that you can call on if you need them. We have been doing it for a year and a half and have used a plumber twice in that time.

Of course, we don't know what state our house is in......

It is usually 1 month's rent in advance plus 1 month's rent as a deposit. You can have 6 weeks rent as a deposit, though if you are worried about damage.

However, even this isn't going to cover the damage if your tenants totally trash your house which is why vetting the tenants is much more important than the amount of the deposit.

Make sure you get employment and previous landlord references and ask to see 3 months bank statements to check income/expenditure.

We take 1.5 months rent as a deposit which legally now you must place in a tenancy deposit scheme account otherwise you can be fined up to 3 times the value of the deposit.
We then ask for rent to be paid monthly in advance so before they move in we expect 2.5 months rent 1.5 month in tenancy deposit and 1 month for first month rent. We then have them set up standing order so that we receive rent monthly in advance.
If rent is more than 14 days late we immediately serve 2 months notice that can be reviewed if their is an innocent explanation.