No. New customers pay a £0 security deposit, so nothing is held back against your unit and there is nothing to claim back when you leave. Clause 4 of the storage agreement still provides for a deposit, and customers who started with us years ago may still hold one, usually around two weeks’ rent. The £0 applies to new bookings. What you pay when you book is your first four weeks’ rent, plus the charge for our contents protection if you take ours rather than arranging your own insurance. The quote shows the exact amounts before you pay anything.
What you pay on day one
The quote’s payment summary lists two things, and its total is those two added together, with no VAT added on top:
| Up-front item | How it’s worked out |
|---|---|
| First four weeks’ rent | The four-week price, after any introductory offer |
| Contents protection | Based on the replacement value of your goods, if you take our cover rather than your own |
For a sense of scale, take a 25 sq ft unit (a spare room’s worth, or a few pieces and some boxes). The median of the listed prices on our October 2026 price lists is £20.50 a week before any introductory offer, so four weeks comes to about £82. Listed standard rates for that size run from £11 to £47 a week depending on the site and the floor, which puts four weeks somewhere between £44 and £188. Prices include VAT and nothing is added at checkout. Your quote gives the real figure for your unit.
Because there is no deposit, an introductory offer reduces the whole of what you pay up front rather than just part of it. Our current offers run from 50% to 75% off your first weeks depending on the site, and some are limited to a particular floor or to container storage, so the detail for your town is on its own price page.
You do need contents cover: ours, charged in your quote, or your own policy. Our insurance FAQ says “All customers require contents protection for their stored goods”, and you can either accept our contents protection cover or “arrange insurance at your own expense”. If you start on our cover and then show your own policy, the same FAQ says “we will refund you the Goods Protection charges in full once proof of cover is supplied within 14 days of your move-in”. The charge for our cover is not published as a rate; it appears in your quote once you enter the value of your goods.
After the first four weeks, rent (and our cover, if you take it) is charged automatically every four weeks, which is 13 payments a year. See when you’ll be charged.
What you get back when you leave
Not a deposit, because you never paid one. What does come back is any rent you have paid for days you have not used. Give the notice your Cover Sheet sets out, which our move-out guide puts at “normally 14 days”, empty the unit by your end date and settle anything owing, and the unused days are refunded to you.
How to give notice to leave explains how to count the days, and do I need to leave the unit clean? covers the condition the unit should be in. Leaving it clean and undamaged matters in its own right: if a unit needs cleaning or repair after you have gone, we can still charge for putting it right, and with no deposit sitting there, that would be an invoice rather than a deduction.
Is this unusual?
Among self storage operators, yes. A refundable deposit of around two weeks’ rent is still common in the trade, usually charged at the standard weekly rate so that an introductory offer lowers the rent but not the deposit, and held for as long as you store. It is worth checking when you compare quotes, because an advertised weekly price can look similar while the amount you actually hand over on day one differs by a hundred pounds or more.
Is a storage deposit protected like a tenancy deposit?
It is a fair question, and the answer matters less here because we do not hold one. For the record: GOV.UK says a landlord must use a government-approved tenancy deposit scheme if you rent your home on an assured periodic tenancy, but a storage agreement is a licence to use a unit, not a tenancy, so a storage deposit held by any operator sits outside those schemes and is protected only by that operator’s written terms. If you are comparing us with a company that does take one, that is worth knowing.
Storing for a business, charity or landlord
The same applies: no deposit on a business account either. Rent is charged four-weekly as above, and we can issue a VAT invoice for your own accounts — see do you provide VAT invoices?
Behind on payments
There is no deposit for us to set against arrears, so an unpaid balance is dealt with directly. What happens if I miss a payment covers it.
Check your figure before you book
Get a price online to see your first four weeks and cover for your unit at your nearest site before you pay anything. For any question about what you pay up front, call us on 0800 2545585.
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