Sometimes money has to go back: a deposit at the end of a tenancy, a stay that was cancelled, a service booking that never happened, an order that was paid for and cancelled. The Refunds page in your dashboard shows every one of those, from both directions — what is owed to you, and what you owe.

Rentor does not hold the money, so Rentor cannot send it

This is the thing to understand first, because everything else follows from it.

Rent, deposits and booking payments settle directly into the recipient's own M-Pesa, bank or card account. Rentor never sits in the middle holding a float. That is what keeps the platform cheap and keeps your money out of anyone else's balance sheet — but it also means that when a refund is due, Rentor has nothing to send back. The person who received the money is the only person who can return it.

So a refund on Rentor is not a button that moves money. It is an obligation: a public, dated record of what is owed, by whom, to whom, tracked until both sides agree it is settled.

How one moves

If you are owed money

You do not have to do anything to open a refund — it is created automatically when the event happens: a stay is cancelled, a tenancy ends, a paid service booking is declined, or a seller cancels an order you had already paid for through Rentor.

When the payer records it as sent — the refund then reads "They say it's sent" — check your M-Pesa or bank first, then answer. Both answers matter:

• Yes, it arrived closes it and counts in the payer's favour.
• It hasn't arrived asks you what happened, and Raise it with Rentor sends it to Rentor staff to rule on. Do this if the money genuinely did not arrive — not because the amount is wrong, which is a different conversation.

If you say nothing for 14 days, a claim auto-confirms. Silence is treated as settlement, because an obligation nobody ever answers cannot stay open forever. Rentor records that as auto-confirmed, not as confirmed — "they agreed" and "they never said" are different facts and only the first reads as agreement. But it does close, so if a claim is wrong, say so inside the window.

If you owe money

Send it however you normally would — M-Pesa, bank transfer, cash. (If your M-Pesa wallet is set up, you can send it from there.) Then open the refund, click I've refunded them, add the reference and, ideally, a screenshot of the confirmation under Proof, and press Record the refund.

Two reasons to record it rather than just sending it:

1. The other person is notified and can confirm, which closes the matter.
2. An unclaimed refund past its window shows publicly against you as an outstanding obligation. See below.

Deposits are a special case

A deposit refund opens for the full amount the moment the tenancy ends. Deductions then reduce it — each one itemised, with a reason the tenant can read. As the landlord, use Withhold part of it on the refund: say what you're withholding for and how much, then Record the deduction. You can add more than one, but only before you record the refund as sent — reducing the figure afterwards would rewrite what the tenant was asked to confirm.

The full amount opens first on purpose. If the obligation only appeared once the landlord had decided what to deduct, then a landlord who simply never filed anything would never owe anything, and the deposit would quietly evaporate. Starting from the whole sum means the deductions have to be justified against something.

Tenants: see Your security deposit and Moving out for what can and cannot be deducted.

What "refund standing" shows publicly

Landlords, agencies and hosts carry a public refund standing on their profile: how many refunds are outstanding, and how old the oldest is. Never the amount — what somebody owes is between them and the payee; whether they pay people back is something the next tenant or guest is entitled to weigh.

Confirmed refunds do not count. Only what is still outstanding past its window does.

If it stalls

• The payer has not recorded anything, weeks later — message them first, then open a support ticket under Payouts & refunds. The refund stays on their public standing the whole time.
• You disputed and heard nothing — a dispute goes to staff, and you will get a decision on the ticket.
• You think the amount is wrong — that is not a dispute over arrival, it is a disagreement about the sum. Raise a ticket and say what you think it should be and why.

On the phone app: Refunds is in the More menu with the same buttons — I've refunded them, Withhold part of it, Yes, it arrived and It hasn't arrived. Attaching a proof screenshot is done on the website.