We had a really nice lady and her 3 year old son wanting to rent a house.  Their reason for moving was she would like a bigger house. They were moving from a 2 bedroom semi-detached house and wanted a 3 bedroom house.

She had completed her application form really well, and all her finances were checking out.  We did a few sums with the figures she gave us, and yes she could afford the larger house, but we had worked out that the house would cost approximately £500 more per month than her current house.

The lady hadn’t taken into consideration that her housing benefit she received would actually go down moving from a 2 bedroom house to a 3 bedroom one.  Housing benefit is calculated on how many bedrooms is needed, and as it was just her and her son, the benefit office would see a 3rd bedroom as excessive and would reduce the payment.

She decided not to rent the house in the end.

Doing your sums is so important, the last thing we want our tenants to feel is over stretched, and to have to go through the stress of moving again just a few months later. 

Unfortunately cash deposits are a thing of the past.  Due to anti-money laundering laws we need to verify the source of funds. This is very hard to do with cash.  Someone not so long ago offered us a £5000 deposit for a property, apparently obtaining it from their landscape gardening business. 

No matter how attractive is it (Mr Bond) having a suitcase full of cash, there is no way of verifying the source, and so the application stopped there.