flatfair Reviews 

Very informative website, plus easy to use

She was really helpful

really easy to use, super helpful to not be trying to find £1000's for a deposit which you may never see again !

Excellent customer services. Moving home was straight forward and easy

Good and helpful

all works are nice

Quick and easy to action

You have made my moving in to the new apartment easy, and i avoided the expensive deposit.

The entire system

I would strongly recommend that landlords carefully consider whether Flatfair is the right deposit scheme for them.

I submitted a claim for £1,440 following a tenancy of approximately 3½ years, supported by the checkout report, invoices and other evidence. I accepted that fair wear and tear had to be taken into account and deliberately limited my claim rather than seeking to recover all of the costs I had incurred.

The claim was ultimately rejected in full. My biggest concern was that an interim inspection report from 2023, which formed part of the evidence submitted, recorded the property as being in good condition during the tenancy. Despite this, the adjudication decision placed considerable weight on the absence of a check-in report from the start of the tenancy and awarded £0.

I appreciate that adjudication has to be evidence-based and that the absence of a proper check-in inventory was a weakness in my case. However, I was disappointed that the 2023 inspection evidence did not appear to receive meaningful consideration when assessing whether deterioration had occurred during the tenancy.

As a landlord, I found the outcome extremely frustrating, particularly having incurred considerably more in remedial costs than I was actually claiming.

Following this experience, I would personally prefer to use a traditional deposit scheme in future and would advise other landlords to carefully consider the differences before choosing Flatfair.

Update:
Following my critical review on this website (I had not contacted them) Flatfair referred the case back to its independent adjudication service for a fresh review by a different adjudicator. The revised outcome awarded £150, leaving £1,290 of my claim unsuccessful.

For landlords considering Flatfair, my experience has highlighted some significant risks:

• No FCA-regulated insurance protection: Flatfair confirms that its No Deposit product is not insurance. It operates on a discretionary basis rather than providing the same model as a traditional cash deposit scheme.

• Rigid Evidence Trap: Traditional schemes evaluate the totality of evidence, allowing room for negotiation using held cash. Because Flatfair uses a strict portal, a single paperwork gap can instantly wipe out your claim.

• Zero leverage: In my opinion, a non-refundable fee gives tenants considerably less financial incentive to protect a property than having a substantial refundable cash deposit at stake. This is one of the fundamental differences between the two models.

• Risk ultimately sits with the landlord: The convenience of a deposit-free scheme may benefit tenants and agents, but my experience has left me questioning whether it provides sufficient protection for landlords when there is a dispute.

Despite the second arbitration my experience has not changed my view. I am still awaiting to receive my paltry compensation as well. In my opinion, the convenience of a deposit-free scheme is not worth the additional risk, and I would choose a traditional five-week cash deposit scheme for future tenancies.

Based on my experience, I would not use Flatfair again and urge all landlords to avoid.

Excellent documentation

Great service.

No comment, No comment

We don’t like the fact we had to set up two accounts, that the scheme treats two tenants - a married couple, individually. Moreover, the online process is not senior friendly (there ought to be a way to deal with such things in person).

Easy to use, clear and straight forward. It helped me save a lot for other moving costs

It made it very easy and it seems a good thing to have when renting a property to protect both landlords and tenants

Very easy great communication