Renting in London for the first time

If you are reading older advice, some of it is now wrong. Four changes matter to you as a tenant in England.

Get three things ready, because the market will move faster than your paperwork if you don't.

First, proof of income — usually three months of payslips, or a signed contract if you are starting a new job. Second, ID and proof of your right to rent in the UK, which a landlord is legally required to check. Third, the deposit money actually available, not theoretically available at the end of the month.

Decide your area before you start booking viewings. Turning up to a flat you cannot realistically commute from wastes an evening you will want back, and in a fast market the decision often has to be made on the spot.

Good properties in popular areas go within days, sometimes within hours of the first viewing block. Agents frequently run several viewings back to back and take offers at the end of the evening.

That pace is real, but it is also a pressure tactic when exaggerated. The things worth checking do not take long: water pressure, and whether the hot water actually runs hot; mobile signal; damp in the corners of external walls and behind furniture; what the windows face and how much noise comes through them; and where the nearest station really is on foot rather than as the crow flies.

Ask what the EPC rating is and what the last tenant's bills looked like. A cheap flat rated F is not cheap in January.

When you decide to take a place you will usually be asked for a holding deposit to take it off the market. In England this is capped at one week's rent and must be resolved within seven days — either refunded, or rolled into your first rent or deposit — unless you pull out or fail the right-to-rent check.

The tenancy deposit itself is capped at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, and six weeks where it is £50,000 or more. Anything above that is unlawful. It must be protected in one of the three government-approved schemes within 30 days, and you should receive prescribed information telling you which one holds it.

So on a £1,200 room, expect roughly £1,385 of deposit plus £1,200 of first month's rent — about £2,585 — with a separate £277 holding deposit earlier in the process that is absorbed into that total rather than added to it.

Referencing checks your income, your credit file and usually your previous landlord. Most agents want to see annual income of roughly thirty times the monthly rent — on a £1,200 room, about £36,000.

If you do not meet that, or you are new to the UK with no credit history, you will be asked for a UK-based guarantor who does. Guarantor services exist and will do it for a fee, typically several weeks' rent, which is worth pricing against simply looking slightly cheaper.

Be straight in referencing. It is checked, and a discrepancy discovered late costs you both the property and the time.

Read the tenancy agreement properly. You are looking for who is responsible for which repairs, any restrictions that matter to you, and — because tenancies are periodic now — the notice you must give to leave, which is generally two months.

On move-in day, take the inventory seriously. Photograph everything, including what is already damaged, and date-stamp it. Take meter readings and send them to the supplier the same day. The overwhelming majority of deposit disputes are about wear that was already there and which nobody recorded.

Then register for council tax if it is not included in your rent, and check whether you qualify for the 25% single-person discount.