flatfair Announces New Product to Streamline Tenancy Deposits

Payment technology firm flatfair has announced flatfair Deposits, a new product that processes traditional tenancy deposits alongside its market-leading deposit alternative. Following a successful trial with leading rental housing supplier Greystar, Deposits is being released to the wider market.

flatfair’s most popular product, No Deposit, allows tenants to pay a one-off flat fee equivalent to one week’s rent (plus VAT) instead of a costly five-week deposit. flatfair Deposits will sit alongside No Deposit on the existing software platform, allowing agents and landlords to offer their tenants the choice of either. flatfair will then manage the entire process, whichever option the tenant chooses, ensuring the choice is clear and fully compliant with the Tenant Fees Act.

For agents and landlords, processing traditional deposits is an outdated process. It’s often manual, time-consuming and prone to human error. Getting it wrong runs the risk of high penalties – typically three times the deposit amount – and makes it much more challenging to remove tenants. The platform now automates the traditional deposit process, offering speed and certainty and removing the chance of non-compliance. flatfair calculates that its latest product will save agents on average an hour of admin time per deposit, making agent’s lives significantly easier.

By partnering with TrueLayer, flatfair Deposits transfers the money instantly via Open Banking, with the funds automatically registered with the agent’s preferred certified deposit scheme. All of the relevant administration is managed within the secure platform, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring there is an audit trail.

Carmine D’Orazio, Building Manager at Greystar, said: “Bringing flatfair’s Deposits platform to Ten Degrees in Croydon has brought significant efficiency gains to a time-consuming process. Deposit alternatives have been a highly requested feature, particularly as the cost of living bites, and having both options in one platform is a much simpler process for our staff.”

Gary Wright, Co-CEO of flatfair, said: “Feedback from agents and landlords about No Deposit often mentions the simplicity and ease of use of our platform, so we aimed to bring that user experience to traditional deposits. Until now, these were a largely manual process in which small errors could come back to bite landlords and agents. Rolling out flatfair Deposits is an exciting next step in the continuation of our mission to make renting fairer and simpler for everyone involved. It has been great to see the benefits this is already bringing to Greystar and I look forward to providing the same benefits to many more agents and landlords.”