Renting safely

Almost everyone advertising on Rooms.net is exactly who they say they are. The small number who are not all want the same thing, and they all want it before you have seen the room.

The one rule that matters

Never send money for a room you have not stood in.

Not a deposit, not a holding fee, not "one month up front to take it off the market", not a payment to a referencing company you have never heard of. Every rental scam that works, works because somebody paid before they visited. Every honest landlord will let you see the room first.

What a scam usually looks like

The details vary; the shape does not. If you see two or three of these together, stop.

  • They cannot show you the room. They are working abroad, the current tenant is difficult, they are between flights. The room is always real and they are always somewhere else.
  • The keys will be posted. Nobody posts keys.
  • The price is remarkable. A double room in zone 2 for £400 including bills is not a lucky find.
  • They want to move off the site immediately. A quick switch to WhatsApp or email is not itself suspicious — plenty of landlords prefer it — but it is where every scam ends up, because there is no record of it here.
  • Payment by bank transfer, cryptocurrency or gift cards. None of these can be reversed. That is precisely why they are asked for.
  • You are being hurried. Three other people are interested, it will go today, they need the deposit this afternoon.

Before you view

  • Tell somebody where you are going and when you expect to be back.
  • View during the day where you can, and take somebody with you.
  • Keep the conversation on Rooms.net until you have met. If anything goes wrong afterwards, we can only see what happened here.

At the viewing

  • Ask to see the whole property, not one room.
  • Meet whoever already lives there. A landlord unwilling to let you speak to the existing tenants is telling you something.
  • Ask who owns the property and to see something confirming it — a mortgage statement, a council tax bill, or the tenancy agreement if they are subletting with permission.
  • Ask for the gas safety certificate and the EPC. A landlord is required to give you these, and one who cannot has other problems too.

Your money and the law

  • A deposit is capped. Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, a tenancy deposit cannot exceed five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000.
  • A holding deposit is capped at one week's rent, and only one may be held at a time.
  • There are no admin fees. Charging you for referencing, an inventory, or drawing up the contract is unlawful in England.
  • Your deposit must be protected. For an assured shorthold tenancy, it goes into a government-approved scheme within 30 days and you must be told which one.

Tell us

Every listing and every conversation has a Report link. It takes under a minute, you do not need an account, and the person you report is never told who told us.

Reporting something that turns out to be innocent costs nobody anything. Not reporting something that was not costs the next person a great deal.

If something has already happened

If you have lost money, report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or at actionfraud.police.uk. If you feel unsafe or threatened, contact the police on 101, or 999 in an emergency.

Tell us as well. We can take a listing down and stop an account, which protects the next person — but we cannot recover money or investigate a crime, and we would rather say so than let you wait on us.