The Zero Deposit Guarantee is an innovative deposit replacement scheme designed to make renting faster, fairer and more affordable. Find out how Zero Deposit works and learn how it can benefit letting agents.
In a deposit replacement scheme, the tenant pays a fee to cover the landlord against financial loss instead of making a cash deposit. With the Zero Deposit Guarantee, tenants pay the equivalent of one week’s rent plus a set up fee at the start of the tenancy and if they continue to live at the property, they will also pay a £17.50 annual fee. The landlord is covered for six weeks’ rent, and any end-of-tenancy disputes are handled by The Dispute Service (TDS): a trusted, independent dispute resolution service. Tenants who owe rent or are liable for damage must pay the landlord. If they do not, following a decision by TDS, Zero Deposit steps in, pays the landlord and recovers the money from the tenant.
Working with Zero Deposit saves you time, attracts tenants, protects landlords and gives you a competitive edge in the marketplace. Properties where the no deposit option is offered are more appealing to tenants, while landlords appreciate the extra financial protection provided by the scheme (six weeks’ rent). As a Zero Deposit partner agent you will also earn commission for every introduction that leads to a Zero Deposit Guarantee purchase. Find out more about becoming a partner by visiting the agents page on our website.
Tenants are attracted to a deposit replacement scheme because it allows them to move in more quickly, without having to save or wait for their previous deposit to clear. It also gives them access to much-needed funds that would otherwise be locked away in a cash deposit. Landlords experience fewer void periods, have access to a wider range of tenants and are covered for up to six weeks’ rent under the scheme. If a dispute is settled in their favour, landlords are refunded in as little as two working days of bank details being provided. Both tenants and landlords appreciate having less admin to deal with at the start of the tenancy.
The benefits of a deposit replacement scheme versus a traditional cash deposit scheme are that tenants can move in faster, without having to save for a big tenancy deposit. Landlords are covered for up to six weeks’ rent, and can recoup losses in as little as two working days of bank details being provided if a dispute is settled in their favour.
If you’d like to join the 2,700 plus letting agents who have chosen to become Zero Deposit partner agents, simply visit the Agent section of our website and click on “Get Started”, after which you’ll be asked to submit a few details. Once you’ve sent your partnership enquiry, we’ll be in touch as soon as possible with more information about joining Zero Deposit.
The FCA-regulated Zero Deposit Guarantee provides cover against financial loss or damage suffered by the landlord, including unpaid rent or damage to the property for which the tenant is liable for under the AST. The cover, provided by Great Lakes Insurance SE, part of the Munich Re Group, is for the equivalent of six weeks’ rent. Any end-of-tenancy disputes are assessed by The Dispute Service (TDS); following their decision, Zero Deposit will pay the landlord and recover the money from the tenan
By offering a deposit replacement scheme on their property, your landlord will benefit from increased demand for their properties, a wider range of tenants and reduce void periods. Landlords are covered for six weeks’ rent, providing greater protection than a cash deposit.
For houses in multiple occupation each tenant is asked to sign up to a joint no deposit guarantee and share the cost of fees. Under this no deposit rent arrangement, tenants agree they are jointly and severally liable to pay for any unpaid rent or damage to the landlord’s property.
No, there’s no need for the letting agent to collect a deposit on behalf of Zero Deposit landlords because the Zero Deposit Guarantee replaces the traditional rent deposit. With deposit free renting the landlord benefits from protection and security and you no longer face the hassle of collecting a traditional deposit.
Any tenant who has passed referencing from one of oour approved reference providers, or who has a guarantor who has passed referencing, can be referred for a Zero Deposit Guarantee.
You have to offer tenants the choice of either a cash deposit or a Zero Deposit Guarantee; however, many of our agents agree with their landlords that they’ll advertise all of their properties as available with a Zero Deposit Guarantee by default.
If you’d like to find out more about how you offer Zero Deposit under standard terms, click here.
Yes, you can be confident that a Zero Deposit Guarantee will protect landlords because our no deposit scheme is insured by Great Lakes Insurance SE and subject to regulation by the FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority, while disputes are handled by The Dispute Service (TDS). Landlords and tenants therefore get a fair, transparent product without hidden risks.
We will never ask for your password or login details. If you receive any request for this information, kindly report it to us at support@zerodeposit.com
Ensure you do not use a password that can be easily guessed and never use the same password for multiple websites for which you are registered to use. Be minimalist with the amount of personal information you share about yourself online, to help reduce your risk of identity theft and fraud. Always update your computer, tablet and smartphone’s operating system and web browser software. We recommend you use anti-virus software to protect your devices.
We cover a range of tenancies where a traditional cash deposit would be needed. These include:
✔️ Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) - In England and Wales
✔️ Private Residential Tenancy (PRT) - In Scotland
✔️ Northern Irish Tenancies - Any tenancy subject to the Private Tenancy (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.
✔️ House of Multiple Occupancies (HMO) - Properties where tenants live in the same house or building under separate tenancy agreements
❌ Tenancies for Lodgers - Where you live with your landlord
❌ Tenancies with Companies as the Tenant - If a company rents the property we can’t cover it.
There are two options:
We’ll provide you with sample wording when you join us, but you should always check that the wording meets your requirements. Remember to get legal advice if you think you need it. You’ll need to ensure that your AST is legally binding, so if you are unsure, ensure you get legal advice.
With the Zero Deposit Guarantee there’s no need to provide the tenant with prescribed information. This is because no deposit is being lodged.
Instead, both the tenant and the landlord get a full pack of information detailing the cover and the parties involved. We handle this part of the transaction, meaning you can focus on moving your tenants into their next home.
If you are renting to sharers all on the same tenancy agreement, then you will need to add all of them to the referral you send to us. We’ll provide a quote to all the parties to see if they want to go ahead.
They split the cost (and liability) jointly and severally, which means they all have to agree and they all have to pay if there is a claim.
The Zero Deposit Guarantee is paid for by your tenant. The tenant pays Zero Deposit a non-returnable fee, which is the equivalent of one week’s rent plus a £49 set up fee, followed by an annual fee of £17.50 if they remain in your property. You will be covered for up to the value of six weeks rent. There are no associated costs for landlords who offer a zero deposit rental property.
Zero Deposit costs nothing for landlords. The initial cost of the Zero Deposit Guarantee for the tenant is the equivalent of one week’s rent plus a £49 set up fee. The Zero Deposit Guarantee is automatically renewed on an annual basis. On renewal, the tenant also pays an annual fee of £17.50 which covers the cost of managing the Zero Deposit Guarantee. Where there is a change of tenant under an existing Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement, the agent or the landlord needs to inform us of this. New tenants need to accept the terms and conditions. There is no cost for adding a new tenant.
It costs nothing to cancel a Zero Deposit Guarantee as no cancellation fee is payable. Only the tenant can decide to cancel a Zero Deposit Guarantee after signing up to rent a Zero Deposit property and cancellation must happen within the statutory 14-day cooling-off period following the purchase.
Our Partner Agents earn a commission for every introduction that leads to a Zero Deposit Guarantee purchase. Contact us at partners@zerodeposit.com to learn how your agency can benefit by offering our no deposit renting insurance.
As with any other tenancy when a tenant moves out you need to go through the process of getting an independent check-out inventory and discussing any outstanding issues. You also need to let us know that the tenancy has ended. Remember you have to notify us of a potential claim within 28 days of the tenancy ending, otherwise we won't be able to pay a claim. To do this you can start the claims process in the Zero Deposit portal or contact our claims team on 0333 200 2541.
If you have a tenancy where there are a group of people sharing a property and one moves out, we can easily update the landlord's cover. Get in touch and we'll remove the tenant and, if needed, add their replacement. Any new tenants will have to accept the terms of cover before they're added to the Zero Deposit Guarantee.
If you have a joint tenancy and all of the tenants are moving out, then you should end the tenancy on our portal. Remember if you need to make a claim you have to do this within 28 days of the tenancy ending, otherwise we won't be able to pay a claim. To do this you can start the claims process in the Zero Deposit portal or contact our claims team on 0333 200 2541.
If a landlord believes there is any financial loss or damage suffered by them under their assured shorthold tenancy agreement, and they have failed to reach a settlement directly with their tenant, they can notify us of this and request to make a claim. If at the end of the tenancy we become aware that the tenant has not made payment to the landlord in settlement of any financial loss or damage, we will deem them to have made a claim.
We always encourage settlement by negotiation. Where the tenant disputes a claim, we will ask the landlord and the tenant to provide evidence to support their claim and we will pass the claim and the evidence to our expert evaluation partner, The Dispute Service (TDS). TDS will review the claim and determine whether the tenant is liable for any financial loss or damage under the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement and, if so, the amount due to the landlord.
Disputes are handled by The Dispute Service (TDS), the longest running tenancy deposit protection scheme in the UK, which enables us to provide a highly experienced and professional service to our customers. All TDS adjudicators belong to the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and comply with their Adjudicator Code of Conduct, which is available on the TDS website. The adjudicators make decisions based on the issues in dispute and the evidence provided.
Claims must be notified to us within 28 days of the tenancy ending.
The Zero Deposit Guarantee covers everything that a cash deposit would, as outlined in your AST. The only difference is that to purchase a Guarantee tenants (or their guarantors) have to have passed referencing and claims need to be notified to us within 28 days. You will need to provide copies of the reference report in the event of a claim and any evidence to support the claim.
The Dispute Service (TDS) assess the majority of our claims. So, prepare a claim to us as you would with a cash deposit. Being clear about what you are claiming for and why it is covered under the Tenancy Agreement helps the adjudicator understand why you are claiming and what you are claiming for.
You’ll also need to provide a copy of the reference report.
As with a cash deposit claims are assessed on the basis of evidence provided by the landlord. The key evidence you need to provide includes:
If you don’t provide this evidence, as with a cash deposit, it will be harder for you to prove the claim you’re trying to make and may result in significant reductions.
Partnering with Zero Deposit is simple. Contact our partnership team on partners@zerodeposit.com.
Our partnership team will then talk you through our process and get you up and running as quickly as possible. If you’ve got a tenant waiting who wants to use a Zero Deposit Guarantee, that’s not a problem just let us know.
Our onboarding process involves all of the checks you need to complete and training on how to position our products for the best outcomes. Once you’re launched you’ll be able to refer tenants to us and your properties listed on Zoopla will be visible through our property search tool.
We keep our onboarding process as easy as possible. All we need is:
We do background checks, as a responsible FCA regulated business. We also complete Anti Money Laundering checks, which you’ll need to agree to as part of our onboarding process.
We can’t advise you on what your privacy notice should say, as it will be specific to your business. We look for the things included in the ICO’s checklist, which you can find here.
Anti Money Laundering Checks are used to make sure that our partners are who they say they are and aren’t involved in organised crime or terrorism. We use an online system for this process, which doesn’t leave a footprint - so no impact on your credit score.
If you want to book training with us, please contact us on partners@zerodeposit.com
On average it takes around 15 days to bring a partner onboard, but we can get you launched in an afternoon if you need to. We understand you've got priorities in your business so we're happy to work with you to suit your needs.
As a regulated insurance provider our business and product is regulated by the FCA. This means we must act in a fair and proper way at all times. Businesses that are regulated by the FCA will always be held to the highest standards. Regulation is not something to be scared of as it provides a set of rules and safeguards to ensure that products like ours are sold responsibly. It also means that your landlord is provided with unambiguous and legally binding protection which is not always available with unregulated schemes.
Our insurance partner Munich Re (the world's second largest reinsurer) backs all of our insurance contracts, this means that you can have confidence that your guarantees will always be honoured and leave your landlords protected. We believe that this is essential given the current economic climate.
Finally our products are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which means that, in addition to the backing of one of the world’s leading reinsurers, landlords have UK Government backing to fall back on should the scheme fail.
If a protection product does not offer cover should things go wrong with the scheme itself, ask yourself “what steps would you need to put in place to cover your landlords?” It is the answer to this question that has led the majority of leading UK letting agents to choose our product when adopting a deposit replacement provider.
Marketing a property with a deposit replacement product generates more interest and helps tenants move in faster, reducing void periods and giving landlords more choice.
If tenants don’t need to raise money for a deposit, they are often ready to move earlier, not needing to wait until the end of the month to move in.
More choice for tenants means better choice for landlords. And with the additional protections offered under our product you can have confidence that you are providing your landlords with the best protection available in the market today.
IAR is a term used to describe a business who shares the permissions given to us by the Financial Conduct Authority. There are rules around what an IAR can and can't do, but they're very simple and we can talk you through how this works in our training.
Yes, we do have a number of other partnership models, so we can work to suit your business. If you're happy letting the benefits of Zero Deposit speak for themselves, you can partner with us on an information only basis, which works well for many of our partner agents.
Information only is where you give the tenants neutral and factual information about the product.
If you are an insurance intermediary you can use your own FCA permissions, let our partnership team know you're interested in partnering and we can set you up today!
If you think that you’ve previously had access to the portal then you should reset your password, here. You should then receive an email allowing you to reset your password.
If you’ve never had access to the portal then you’ll need to get set up. Speak to your branch manager to see if they can get you set up. If not, or you are a branch manager, email us at support@zerodeposit.com with the details of who needs to be set up. We need:
Remember, you’ll need to have the right email domain for us to set you up. You’ll also need to undergo training, so we’ll need to check this out.