An end of tenancy proptech offering developed by one of the UK’s leading agents is about to be launched.
London lettings agent Krystjan Byfield (pictured, below), who was also one of the founding members of the Charter for Independent Letting Agents, decided to launch the proptech platform after his staff told him about the challenges of moving tenants out of a property.
Called The Depositary, it has been built and is now being trialled at Krystjan’s own lettings firm Base so that any kinks in the system can be ironed out, before going to Beta next month and a full launch in the New Year.
“Every year we sit down and talk individually to our staff to understand what the common friction points are that reoccur in the lettings process and what we can do to tackle them, and that’s what The Depositary came out of two years ago,” he says.
“We felt that there is a noticeable shift when a tenant gives notice or leaves a property because, however well the relationship had gone until then, the tenants thought they were going to get ripped off at the end of tenancy.
“We put a lot of effort into educating tenants about the end of tenancy including timelines and responsibilities, and how to get their deposit back, but the reality is they don’t read it – and they’re only interested when it goes wrong.”
To tackle this, The Depositary will enable tenants, landlords and agents to talk to each other during the process and in particular manage the tricky job of returning the deposit but also inventories and other features of the moving out process.
Kristjan claims that the platform, which is to be launched in partnership with the UK’s largest deposit scheme TDS, will help cut the time and admin work required when moving tenants out by 80%.
“It just gets rid of the donkey work,” says Kristjan.
“But it’s not about getting rid of staff – it’s about being able to reassign staff to deliver a better experience or generate more income.
“It will be offered at a very low cost so we’re hoping for a very broad take-up within the industry.”
Kristjan is also expecting his platform to ‘plug and play’ with all the main agent software systems and, he says, Zoopla have already given a verbal green light while other systems are talking to him including Qube and LetMC.
“We’re going to offer this out directly to agents as well and at a very low cost, so we’re expecting really fast growth in terms of agent numbers in the New Year,” says Kristjan.
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