What are they?

•  They are schemes which usually offer a written guarantee to a landlord. This guarantees that if you fail to pay rent or damage property, the scheme will compensate the landlord.

•  This gets round the problem of you being unable to pay a cash deposit.

•  If the scheme does have to compensate the landlord, you will have to pay the scheme back.

•  Many of these schemes are run by local councils or charities.

•  Different schemes operate in different ways. Schemes run by councils can only usually be used by people living in their area. Some council schemes will cover properties outside their area, others won’t.

•  Some schemes have a list of landlords who have properties available.

•  You could search for schemes outside of London if you are thinking of moving out (see below for how to search).

•  These schemes, so long as they do not involve cash deposits, do not come under The National Tenancy Deposit Scheme.

How do I find one of these Schemes?

•  For information and details of schemes run by local councils see Local Council Private Rented sector schemes.

•  For information and details of schemes run by charities see Private Rented sector schemes run by charities.

•  For details of rent deposit schemes nationwide go to crisis.org.uk/prs/index.php