Placing a holding deposit of one week's rent tells us tenants are serious about renting a property. It allows us to begin the tenancy process, so we can stop promoting the property to other tenants and start arranging referencing and contracts.

As the name suggests, this is a deposit and is not a charge or fee.

The holding deposit is placed towards the first months rent upon successful contract signing.

If the tenants fail referencing and can't secure appropriate guarantors, or the landlord isn’t happy with these tenants, the holding deposit is returned to the tenants. If the tenants decide they no longer want the property, the landlord can make claim to the holding deposit to cover the cost of the property being off the market.

Most landlords ask tenants to pay a deposit before they move in. They may be entitled to keep all or part of it if tenants:

• leave the property owing rent
• damage the property
• do not pay their bills

The main terms in your tenancy are set by the details you provide when we create your listing - price, deposit, contract length, etc. The move-in date is agreed in consultation with the new tenant. You can change any of these details when drafting the contract at the relevant stage.

We advise against adding custom clauses, or using the custom clause section to overrule any clauses in our standard contract - however, we realise sometimes landlords want this flexibility, and therefore we have enabled the adding of custom clauses. Note that Agent Zero Management will not look over clauses added, or ensure they are legally sound, so use at your own risk! Our general policy is to provide a tenancy that is broad reaching and which reflects industry best practice in terms of protecting the interests of both parties. As such, we don't feel custom clauses should be required.

We advise our landlords to keep a £250 float per property to deal with property maintenance issues, but the level is entirely up to you. A contractor from our panel will carry out the necessary work(s) and their paid invoice will be attached to your monthly statement so you can see we don’t charge any mark-ups. We will then top up the float from the rental income or, where necessary, we will ask our landlords to top up the float. This is part of our mission to give you a hassle-free service. For larger jobs, we will contact you with a quotation and seek your approval before instructing the contractor. However, we are totally flexible on this and will be happy to cater to your exact requirements, which we will agree with you when you sign up.

We have a growing list of excellent contractors - covering all trades across the Isle of Man - all of whom have signed up to our code of ethics and give us the best rates possible. We do not mark up their prices or take any secret commission, and this is an important reason why contractors want to be selected for our panel. Any contractor who fails to comply with our code of conduct and high level of service is removed from the panel.

We can work with this arrangement, but we would say this may be more hassle than it’s worth because we will need to ask you for funds before we can instruct any maintenance work and then for funds to top up the float after each expense. If we collect the rent, all hassle is removed and rent is turned around within 24 hours.