Scotland slams the door on ‘rip-off’ letting agent fees

This should remove a real burden from tenants who generally have no choice but to pay and may already be under financial pressure. It sets an example to the rest of the UK.

@m in reality a tenant is forced to use a particular agent. Renters are basically stuck with whichever agent the landlord of their preferred property opted to sign a contract with. I’m sure I speak for most people when I say I make my decision based on the home I will be living in for 12 months (often picking from a very limited pool) and not the body handling the initial contract. Only once have I been able to choose between two agents both letting the same flat, and funnily enough on that occasion they agreed to waive their fees as a sweetener!

As a letting agent, I agree fully with the landlord “m” who posted above. Many of those on the other side of the debate believe that agents only work for the landlord, and that all agents are treating tenants badly.We treat our tenants as clients, just as much as our landlords. It’s in the interests of both the landlord and the agent that tenants are happy in the property.

We have only been charging the tenant for referencing, precisely to prevent the problems mentioned by “m”, i.e. prospective tenants changing their mind late in the process or tenants failing our checks. I can guarantee that both of those problems will increase because of what the Scottish Government is doing.

So the loss of fees is not the real problem, it will be the significant additional cost of processing people who fail our checks or who do not take up an offer.

Shelter, as the main campaigners for this change, seem to think we are in the social housing business. Instead of punishing all agents and landlords in the private sector, they should be spending their funds on persuading councils and housing associations to step up to the plate!

@Jennifer
The inventories you describe do sound a bit perfunctory. Even before the advent of tenancy deposit schemes in Scotland, we arranged very detailed inventories by professionals. They are primarily about the condition of the property rather than the contents.

Although they are very detailed, we charge less than you were asked for, and the landlord pays.

While I’m against ripping people off with excessive fees which a lot of agents have been doing for years, as a private landlord I feel the government is unjust in making it illegal for a landlord to charge a prospective tenant the cost of a credit check..

I have recently left a rented flat to buy a house (sorry – apartment – they use that word to make flats sound better). In my experience letting agents are out for all that they can get. People don’t move unless the accomodation that they live in is unsuitable and agents know this – and so prey on vulnerabilities of people so add on extra charges, some are unlawful in Scotland – but the vulnerable tenant to be won’t argue – they need to move. So the charge is added and paid. I don’t blame the agents, if I could earn money from changing an address ona document, charge £100+ then I would do that too. If the tenants reclaim this the practice will stop all it needs is a few cases in the sherifs court to refer to and agents will have no option but to repay all these fees (I bet most of the reclaimyourfees success stories were settled outof court for this reason).

Landlords are complaining that they need reference fees to protect their investment. Hmmmm. Well I am sorry but with great rewards comes great risks and if you are not prepared to take a risk then don’t expect the rewards.

A typical landlord will have invested £20,000 to buy a property that in 20 years time will be theirs – paid for buy their customers rent – and will be worth 10x and more their initial investment. No other investment will offer these returns in such a short space of time with a minimum of effort. So high rewards for high risk…. the risk being that one or 2 of their tennants in this time will be bad costing the landlord only a couple of thousands to put the problem right – out of a return of £180,000+ this is a small amount.

So why are they complaining?

Last part of the problem is that the letting agents charge both sides for the same thing in many cases and neither side know it.

I was charged £125 to renew a fixed term contract. I would be grateful if someone could explain how a letting agent would arrive at this figure and what costs are entailed that I am covering.
If I don’t renew the fixed term and stay on a monthly rollover I can be told to vacate the property with one month’s notice (it says this in my contract), although, legally I believe the landlord would have to give me two month’s notice.

I am currently moving from a rented flat into a rented house. Unfortunately, the house is with a different agent and so far I have had to pay:

£225 – for what they call an application fee
£60 – “Administration” fee
£50 – Guarantor check fee

When I sign the agreement, I will have to pay one months rent + £100 for the deposit (understandable), then a months rent on top (which I knew about anyway) but then a further £60 for a copy of the inventory and another £60 in 6 months for a “tenancy renewal fee”.

I have also had to pay £30 to my current agency to provide a reference. They even charged 45p to pay by my DEBIT card as I couldn’t get into their shop to pay at the time.

I’m thinking of going to trading standards, but I’ll have to pay up and move into the property first as I don’t want to kick up a fuss and have it withdrawn, otherwise I’ll lose everything I’ve paid so far. I’m angry though.,

USA vs UK: I had moved from USA to Scotland and troubled seeing such a sloooow Process for renting. I don’t understand why the owners have depended on agents so and so much and can’t rent on their own. Rental offices are not working on Saturdays is really aching, where as newly on job need to make some time out of Office time on weekdays. Some times, you don’t have good manager, who don’t like giving time off. God bless such a lazy process.