first time student renter would appreciate any help/advice

wiltingspirit

ive been reading through a lot of the content on here regarding renting but still have a couple of questions cropping up which i would really appreciate if you could help me with, because to be honest i dont have much idea what im doing but im trying my best to not get ripped off!

me, my boyfriend and his friend are looking to rent a house and have been looking at properties on the web (mainly rightmove and findaproperty) and also an estate agent from the area we're looking in. What im wondering is:

ive noticed that there can be a lot of fees with going through agent rather than straight to a landlord, but do the websites charge fees and if so how much and are they better or worse than agents?

also if i want to try and avoid said charges by going straight to a land lord how could i go about trying to find properties?

thanks, and sorry if i've forgotten to mention anything im very new to all this!

tbs624

Welcome as a newbie poster First of all have a look up at the top of the board and you' ll see a sticky "guide for renters".

Rightmove and findaproperty tend to list properties available via the LAs who will generally have various charges that they like ot apply for tenants.

Use sites such as this to find LLs who let direct or try googling the town/city and "LL association". Most self-managing LLs tend to only charge the real costs of any credit check usually a max of fifty quid pp.

Be aware that you will probably be signing up to one contract with joint & several liability, which means that each of you will be resonsible for the full rent, if any one of you defaults.


Your best bet is to check out the accredited LL list via the University - these LLs generally have properties of a higher standard, have both their gas & elec certs in place & sign up to a local code of conduct usually drawn up by the Uni and the local LL association, with input from the local council's private sector rentals team.