Are you ‘letting’ agents take more than your deposit?

I have had many bad experiences with lettings agents, too many to list, but now I am no longer renting so the fees just go to solicitors/loan companies instead.

I think it may be worth highlighting how letting agents screw their landlords for fees also. It’s taken me 5 months to get my property up north let out again and what with the extra “renovation” costs that just keep escalating, the letting “fee” is £235 and a marketing “fee” of £70. Then you have to pay for them to draw up to contracts, the same as they charge the tenant.

For landlords it didn’t used to matter as you property was appreciating. Nowadays the amount of fees mean that you are almost losing money. Hence the reason why I think in general, rents have gone up in recent years.

I recently moved into a new flat and, as expected, I was hit with quite a large upfront cost to be made prior to moving in to the property.

The letting agent for the property only presented us with the administration costs for letting as soon as we expressed an interest in putting down a holding deposit, in order to secure the property. These costs included an administration fee of £85+VAT per person and £70+VAT to draw up a copy & pasted tenancy agreement from the previous tenants who had occupied the flat. I will also be one of the unfortunate tenants who has to pay to ‘check out’ at when I leave.

We were actually offered 50% off the administration fee following some complications with the move, after the agent admitting that they make profit on these anyway.

Letting agents don’t seem to be much good at looking after properties either. Letting one older flat in Scotland, we as registered landlords get hit for agents’ marketing fees, then administration fees while the tenancy is going on, and have the property “inspected” “regularly”, but I’ve been present accidentally when one of these was going on, and heard about others from previous tenants. Perfunctory wouldn’t be the word for it (though the quick glance in each room probably confirmed there wasn’t a cannabis farm in situ). If the tenants underpay some months, who has to flag this up when we receive the agents’ statement, then wait for the agents to collect the shortfall they’d never noticed? The landlords. The tenants fail to keep the front garden tidy though it’s a responsibility in their lease, the factors for the building complain to us, but months go by with nothing getting done by the letting agent except more “inspections”, until after the tenants leave. After the tenants move out and we find water damage from unattended leaks, kitchen damage from broken doors etc, who has to get this fixed? The landlords. The agents are members of ARLA (a trade association) with quoted standards, but a joint complaint by previous tenants and landlord about a mistimed maintenance visit and invoice, got nowhere, the agents just took the money from the tenants deposit when they moved.

The Scottish Government is now, as part of deposit protection legislation, forcing letting agents to provide evidence of damage etc and, surprise surprise, the agents are now paying more attention to getting evidence of the initial state of the property, eg digital photos. They’re increasing their admin charges slightly to cover this…

Making agents be part of a regulated complaints procedure (rental services ombudsman?) sounds like a good start.

I’m afraid I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with lettings agents.

Most recently, I moved into a house in Kent using one of the main letting agents on the market. We expected some fees for credit checks and the like, but we were very surprised to find that we had to pay nearly £400 just for credit checks. On top of this, they wanted a £160 holding payment before we paid our deposit (which was 6 weeks rent). The reference checks took no time at all, and I certainly can’t imagine how it cost the letting agent nearly £400 to make them.

Since we’ve been living in the property, the agents have been next to useless. Within our first week, we submitted a list to them of problems we’d had with the property. Yet 4 weeks later, they hadn’t got back to us, and every time we tried to contact them – they told us our landlords were ‘uncontactable’ and that they didn’t have phones or emails where they’d moved to.

It turns out that that wasn’t true (as suspected) – the landlords rang me directly to discuss a few matters (as we were both so fed up of not being able to communicate through the agent). They confirmed that they’d been easy to contact and both had mobile phones, and that they replied to any communications sent to them. They simply hadn’t been sent any! Quite rightly they were furious – they’re paying their agents over £120 a month but they’re not sure what for.

Hi, both us and our daughter have been renting the same property through an estate agent since 28th March 2013 both us and our daughter are on the tenancy agreement as she was over 18. She has now decided to move in with her Boyfriend and has paid a deposit on a flat through the same agent. We have now found out that we have to pay £120 each for checks to be made to see if we can afford the rent on our own. What happens if we can’t? also if we can does that mean that we will have a new tenancy agreement and a new start date? I recently asked if the payment day could be changed to the begging of the month as opposed to the 28th, as my pay day had changed to the last Friday of each month which means that on many occasions the rent is due before I get paid. I was told No, as the contract started on the 28th of the month it will have to remain like that. However, today I have received an email saying that “I an writing regarding your rental payments which we currently take from your account by direct debit,(For the last 2.5years) but we are stopping this method of payment with immediate effect as this is causing a delay in payment to Landlord. Could you please contact your bank to cancel the direct debit and set up a standing order for future payments. Your rent is due by 28th of the month so ideally funds should be taken from your account two days prior to this on order for us to receive funds on the due date” – WHY is it ok for them to request the money 2 days before it is due, but when we asked for it to be moved and obviously pay the difference between the 28th and the 1st they said no as it is written in the contract. Please can you advise if they can do any of the above. Many thanks Lorraine