The short answer
Get every document and the deposit moved across, then tell the tenant in writing who to pay and how to reach you. The order matters. The deposit and the rent are the two things that can fall into the gap between the agent stopping and you starting, and both are easier to get right before the last day than after it.
Ending the agency agreement itself, from the notice period to a fee that keeps running after you leave, is set out step by step in the blog guide on leaving a letting agent, linked at the end. This page starts where that one hands over: the documents, the deposit, the tenant and the tools you will run the let with.
When this comes up
Usually with a tenant who is staying. The agent found them years ago, the let runs quietly, and the monthly percentage now buys little more than forwarding the rent. Or a repair took weeks to get a reply. Because the tenant stays, this is a handover, not a new let: the tenancy itself does not change, only who runs it.
The handover, step by step
- Agree the date management ends, and ask for the handover documents in writing, with that date, using the list below
- Agree with the agent and the deposit scheme how the deposit moves into your name, through the scheme’s own process where it has one, rather than as a bank transfer to you
- Write to the tenant before the change: the date it happens, the new account for the rent, your contact details for repairs, and an address in England and Wales for notices
- Ask the agent for a final statement and any rent they still hold for you
- Put everything into your own records and set the reminders on the day you take over, not the week after
What to ask the agent for
- The signed tenancy agreement, and any renewal or rent increase notices since
- The deposit: amount, scheme, reference, the protection certificate, and the prescribed information given to the tenant with its date
- The current gas safety record, electrical report (EICR) and EPC, and any HMO or selective licence
- The check-in inventory with its photos
- The Right to Rent check record
- When each required document was given to the tenant, such as the government’s information sheet
- A rent statement to date, showing any arrears
- Keys, alarm codes, meter readings and the utility suppliers
- The contractors used, any open repairs, and warranties
- The guarantor deed, if there is one, and the tenant’s contact details
Your options after the agent
- A cheaper agent service. Some agents sell rent collection alone, for a smaller percentage. Published rates are on LetCompliance’s letting agent fees page.
- Self-manage with a spreadsheet and a calendar. Free, and fine for one quiet let. Nothing chases late rent or warns you about a certificate unless you set it up and keep it up.
- Self-manage with landlord software. LetCompliance is Single at £7.99 a month for one property, Solo at £14.99 for up to 3, Portfolio at £19 for up to 10, Portfolio Plus at £29 for up to 20 and Professional at £49 for any number.
- Keep a person for the visits. Viewings, inspections and inventories happen at the property. LetCompliance offers them as one-off bookings covering Crewe, Cheshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Chester, Warrington, Manchester, Liverpool, Wrexham, Derby, Nottingham and Birmingham; elsewhere you need a local contact or a trusted person with keys.
How LetCompliance handles the takeover
Bring the properties in from one spreadsheet saved as CSV: one row per tenant, with rent, rent day, deposit and certificate dates. With several properties coming back from the same agent, ask them for a spreadsheet of the tenancies.
On each tenant, tick Taken over from a letting agent or another scheme and enter the date the deposit was Protected again on in your name. The 30-day clock for the deposit is then counted from that re-protection, and a deposit first taken years ago by the agent is never shown as protected late. The original protection and the prescribed information the agent gave stay as the agent’s record; what LetCompliance checks is the new protection and fresh prescribed information given on or after it.
Make the Prescribed Information from the deposit record. The PDF names every landlord on the property, and the date you give it to the tenant is recorded.
Then move the day-to-day:
- Send every tenant their own portal link in one go, 20 at a click: they see their rent, report repairs with photos and find their documents there
- Ask every tenant to switch to Direct Debit in one go; each tenant confirms their own mandate, and the rent goes into your own Stripe account with no commission taken. Stripe charges 1% of each Direct Debit payment with a 20p minimum and a £4 cap, and £5 for a disputed payment.
- Upload the certificates the agent sends; the expiry dates are read from the files and you are reminded 90 days before each one runs out
- Record the inventory and any open repairs against the property, so the next check-out has something to compare with
The law that touches a handover
- The deposit. Housing Act 2004 section 213 (legislation.gov.uk, read 20 October 2026) gives the landlord 30 days from receiving a deposit to meet the scheme’s initial requirements and to give the prescribed information. GOV.UK’s “Deposit protection schemes and landlords” (read 20 October 2026) lists the three schemes, the Deposit Protection Service, MyDeposits and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, and explains that a custodial scheme holds the money while an insured scheme leaves it with the landlord or agent. Ask the scheme that protects it how a deposit moves from an agent to a landlord.
- Fresh prescribed information. Whether it is strictly required after a takeover is a point for a solicitor. The safest course is to give it within 30 days of the deposit being protected in your name.
- An address for notices. Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 section 48 (legislation.gov.uk, read 20 October 2026) requires a landlord to give the tenant, by notice, an address in England and Wales where notices can be served, and treats rent as not due until that is done. If the agent’s office was that address, give the tenant a new one.
- If the agent will not cooperate. An agent doing lettings agency work must belong to a redress scheme for complaints about it, and so must one doing property management work (the Redress Schemes for Lettings Agency Work and Property Management Work (Requirement to Belong to a Scheme etc) (England) Order 2014, articles 3 and 5, legislation.gov.uk, read 20 October 2026). A managing agent’s handover is property management work.
Common mistakes
- Taking the deposit from the agent as cash or a transfer and not protecting it again. Until you do, it is unprotected money in your hands.
- Assuming the agent’s protection carries on in your name. It is the agent’s protection until the scheme moves it.
- Telling the tenant the new bank details by phone. Put it in writing, or the rent keeps going to the agent.
- Finding out months later that nobody has the gas safety record. Ask for every document before the last day.
- Leaving the tenant with the agent’s office as their address for notices.
Can my letting agent refuse to hand over the deposit?
Where the deposit is in a custodial scheme, the scheme holds the money and moves it by its own process. Where the agent protected it with an insured scheme, the agent holds the money, so ask that scheme how the move to you works and put the request to the agent in writing. If an agent will not cooperate, their redress scheme is the place to complain.
Is it difficult to manage a property without an agent?
Less than most landlords expect with a settled tenant. The paperwork is manageable with the right tools; what an agent really saves is time for calls, contractor access and visits, which you can cover yourself or book as one-off jobs.
Do I need to tell my tenant I am taking over?
Yes, in writing, as in the handover steps above. A tenant who hears nothing will keep paying the agent.
The honest limits
- LetCompliance does not protect, hold or transfer deposits. That is done through the scheme; LetCompliance records the dates, times the deadlines and makes the prescribed information.
- What you agreed with the agent is between you and the agent. LetCompliance cannot end the contract or recover fees for you.
- Rent history from the agent’s time does not come across by itself. Past months can be recorded in one go from the tenancy start, and the agent’s final statement stays the record of what they collected.
- Viewings and visits still need a person at the property, and the one-off jobs cover only the local area listed above.
