reference fees - Twice

dirtydavey

Hello,

Just a bit of advise please. Me and my g/f are living in a flat, where the people next door smoke so much hash that our flat sticks of it, and offten have all night partys.

As she is now prenant we felt it was time to move on and have found another place, and told them why we are going.

Our new agents charged us 200 pounds each for reference fees, and now have rung us telling that our curent agent wnats 20 quid each for proriding a reference. This does not represent the cost to them at all. Should we have to pay this.

We have allready payed reference fees, when we moved in. And again to the new agent, now we are being asked to giev another 40 quid, for them to tell the new agent we live there. As we have allready paid the new agent 400 quid, is it not down to them to find the refrances. Or what are they charging me for, if I have to chase the curent agents my self, and pay them. Should agents not work together on this one?

MX5huggy

:eek:£200 each:eek: now £40 more :eek:

ginvzt

We have just moved to another house advertised by the same agent. Despite us having perfect credit ratings and secure jobs, them checking the house every few months, we still had to pay £100 (there are 2 of us) for credit checks, work references (which they didn't do), etc. The previous search was done 8-9 months ago and we have never been late paying rent.

They can't sell houses anymore, so have to make money other ways. Lucky you to pay out only £40 the second time round...

dirtydavey

ginvzt wrote: »

We have just moved to another house advertised by the same agent. Despite us having perfect credit ratings and secure jobs, them checking the house every few months, we still had to pay £100 (there are 2 of us) for credit checks, work references (which they didn't do), etc. The previous search was done 8-9 months ago and we have never been late paying rent.

They can't sell houses anymore, so have to make money other ways. Lucky you to pay out only £40 the second time round...

No 200 quid each to new agents, and 20 quid each to current agents. Thats 440 quid! So much for no real survice!

ilovecheese

We rent as well, and it is written in our contract that if the letting agent supply us with a refenerence they will charge us £30.00 - LA are a bloody rip off! The do sod all work, ignore you when they have a problem, and charge money for a crap service! I hate LA's!

ginvzt

Why do you need to pay old agent? Are you getting out of the contract early? They should not be charging for references, surely?

ginvzt

ilovecheese wrote: »

We rent as well, and it is written in our contract that if the letting agent supply us with a refenerence they will charge us £30.00 - LA are a bloody rip off! The do sod all work, ignore you when they have a problem, and charge money for a crap service! I hate LA's!

Talk about ignoring problems - our LA has not fixed a single thing that we pointed out in inventory list (9 months ago), first house inspection (5 months ago) or second house inspection (1 month ago). Nor did they bother sorting out the boiler, when we pointed out that the pressure is too low. They actually sent someone to do gas certificate after we asked for a copy of one and the engineer showed us how to increase the pressure. So, we are doing it every few days. We are returning the keys to the house next week. Then I am going to write a complaint letter - not for compensation, but to prevent someone else having to go through the same. (they breached too many rules and also data protection!!!!)

dirtydavey

We managed to get thme down to 20 quid for both of us, as we where moving togther. But then they said it was 20 quid plus 3 quid VAT. Can they really charge VAT on a letter?

I asked for a VAT recipt, and they cant seam to provid me with one.

Dave

ragz_2

That sounds ridiculous. We're having problems with letting agents at the moment too, we're hoping to move but the new agents charge £115 to apply plus £57.50 EACH for credit check, references etc AND an extra fee is you need a guarantor, which we will becuase partner is Self-Employed.
Wouldn't bother me so much if the LAs knew what they were doing but they never seem to, whenever I call them they haven't got a clue! I'm thinking it looks like a good career, make a fortune for doing nothing!
Worst thing is, if our application is not successful we get NOTHING back!
I will check with our current LA about reference fees though, thanks for the tip.
Good luck in your new place and with the pregnancy x

RainMaker_2

ilovecheese wrote: »

We rent as well, and it is written in our contract that if the letting agent supply us with a refenerence they will charge us £30.00 - LA are a bloody rip off! The do sod all work, ignore you when they have a problem, and charge money for a crap service! I hate LA's!

Me too. I avoid them like the plague...and I'm a LL !

dirtydavey

ragz wrote: »

That sounds ridiculous. We're having problems with letting agents at the moment too, we're hoping to move but the new agents charge £115 to apply plus £57.50 EACH for credit check, references etc AND an extra fee is you need a guarantor, which we will becuase partner is Self-Employed.
Wouldn't bother me so much if the LAs knew what they were doing but they never seem to, whenever I call them they haven't got a clue! I'm thinking it looks like a good career, make a fortune for doing nothing!
Worst thing is, if our application is not successful we get NOTHING back!
I will check with our current LA about reference fees though, thanks for the tip.
Good luck in your new place and with the pregnancy x

Thanks,

Yeah they are all jokers.

Got a call from a company today. They want to come round and do a Enargy Porformance Ckeck.

I asked them what this ment. Turns out the flat should not even be on the market till they have done one. And guess what, we have allready had 3 people round. They have no idea!!!!!!

Dave