As a tenant would you like this?

Danjames90

zaphod_beeblebrox wrote: »

You’ve checked the property yourself whilst the present tenants have been living there and your happy, you’ve received your money from the agent each and every month. erm .......... what’s the problem

You maybe right, I am just looking for problems i guess....

zaphod_beeblebrox_2

When using an agent, the tenant should have no communication whatsoever with the landlord

Danjames90

zaphod_beeblebrox wrote: »

When using an agent, the tenant should have no communication whatsoever with the landlord

Yes but this doesnt help me to acertain if the agent is doing a good job, there is no alteriormotive here so I dont think there should be a problem.

clutton_2

ask the agent to do a videoed dated inspection and ask him to send you a copy - that way you will know what state the house is in

if its ok

dont rock the boat - accept the rent, fill in your tax return and enjoy life

purplesmiler82

my partner is renting at the mo and the letting agency are pants! They come round to do checks every other month and faults he reported in the first check have still not been sorted. It is appauling. He is currently looking for somewhere else

Danjames90

purplesmiler82 wrote: »

my partner is renting at the mo and the letting agency are pants! They come round to do checks every other month and faults he reported in the first check have still not been sorted. It is appauling. He is currently looking for somewhere else

This is the exact reason i want to get in touch with my tenants, I am sure your partners landlord would like to know this information.

Thanks.

JayZed

Dan, I think your concern is valid, it's often difficult to know whether your letting agent is doing a good job in terms of servicing tenants properly.

However, you might want to think twice before sending your tenants a letter with your name and contact details on it. One of the advantages of letting through an agent is that the agent is a gatekeeper who deals with any hassle on your behalf. If the tenant has your contact details there's a risk that they'll start coming directly to you with problems if they think they'll get a better response from you than from the agent.

With this in mind, I think arranging a visit while the tenant is there might be the best approach.

poppysarah

I would ring and ask rather than commit them to putting thoughts in writing.
An informal "Do they deal with you well? Could they do anything better?" would get some useful info.

Danjames90

All great advice thank you. I was justing thinking of an informal meet, definitely dont want a phone call asking me to change a light bulb

TFD_2

Well worth doing if you ask me.

I'm renting at the moment, and the agents are pretty crap - ignoring emails, slow to respond to issues, and generally not very interested. However when the landlord has been made aware of any issues, he has sorted them himself very quickly (via a friend as he lives abroad). Contact from the landlord to see how the agents were doing would be more than welcome. I agree with the previous posted that a visit would be less popular, as you would feel obliged to tidy up perhaps more than you usually would!

Some friends of mine have recently moved back to the UK from property developing abroad, and rented a house - as they hadn't started work at this point, they had to pay 6 months rent up front. Their letting agent is hopeless - the house had a number of faults - some minor, some not so, and the agent has been incredibly slow and unhelpful in resolving this. Again it's quite possible that their landlord would not appreciate the way the agent are treating his tenants and I know my friends would again appreciate contact from him, which would allow him to give the agents a kick up the !!!!.

From my experience of renting, the agents are happy to skim off their 10% or whatever for 'management' each month, but don't appreciate doing any work for it! A flat I rented previously was let by a guy in Spain - he wasn't local but still chose to manage himself - any problems were dealt with quickly - we kept in touch with each other if there were any issues, etc. and it worked well, and saved him over £1000 a year! I was an exceptionally good tenant though, but his approach might not have worked if I was scum who destroyed the flat and messed him about...