Letting fees and ways to avoid them

tbs624

gismo1554 wrote: »

My fees for my new flat is £200 admin costs. This included .........dealing with any problems that occur so that I don't need to contact the landlord directly.

My emboldening. Thanks for sharing your experience of LA fees, however, that part is what the LA does as a service to the LL: it is not something for which a T should be charged.

gismo1554 wrote: »

..The renewal fee is then £50 which is to draw up the contract...

Renewals fees are an utter scam. The law provides for a tenancy under an expired AST to become a Statutory Periodic tenancy - no work required from the LA or the LL. If a new FT is required a copy of the AST is located on the computer, dates, names, rent amount inserted , 2 copies printed off. Hardly fifty quid's worth of work IMO.

gismo1554 wrote: »

.. I don't know why a LA wouldn't tell you what the fees covered though.

... probably because they know that they cannot be justified

bwanamakubwa

Thanks for all this info.

The reason I feel this is unjusitfied is for the following:

All documents will be drawn up by the LL as she wants specifics put in that the standard contract does not cover.
LL to provide all credit referencing necessary to be done online.
No one from the LA showed me around the property, the LL did.
LL wishes to use their own maintenance suppliers

From my point of view, they LA has supplied me with the owners phone number and thats it. Yes, they advertised the property and thats how I found it (with old photos and without visiting the property again) and added it to their website but surely this is the £750 they receive from a LL and should not be a fee costed to me.

They have called back saying that I need to make a decision today,they will not be giving me a breakdown of their costs for their admin fee, and there are many people viewing the property. This final point contradicts the what the LL has told me in a conversation today..... the LL has also said that the property is mine subject to references regardless of the threats the agencies make. Im guessing their opinion is final!

Debt_Free_Chick

Whilst it's true that the LA is performing a service for the LL, if the tenant is charged the fee then that's down the LL. There's nothing that requires the tenant to pay the fee - but they usually do as the LL decides to pass it on.

"Blame" the LL, if indeed "blame" is what's needed.

nervousmother

£3000 a month advertising costs
£7000 a month staff wages
£1600 a month tax NI
£600 a month car insurance 2 pool cars
£800 a month cost of 2 pool cars
£1500 rent town centre location
£600 BT phone bill
£100 towards staff mobile
£500 postage
£1000 legal costs
£400 petrol costs
Thats just a rough estimate. 17k a month needed to run a town centre office.(not even mentioned electric, gas, water stationary cleaning and probably loads more i forgot!) we will take approx £3k a month in tenant admin and ref fees (£115 inc vat) a nice sized chunk of what is needed but hardly enough. I dont think our fees are high, I think we need to increase them but its standard fee for our area (we do check what other agents charge & try to charge same as cheapest competitor) but seriously you have no idea on what is involved in running a LA. Its hard work and not enough rewards.
I admit there are some bad LA out there but some good ones too, at the end of the day we have to make a living and the rental market would be a worse place without the 'middleman'. Landlords have peace of mind knowing we will sort out any issues & collect rent, Tenants know they have someone to approach easily about problems at property and know all legal checks are carried out.

LittleMissAspie

bwanamakubwa wrote: »

All documents will be drawn up by the LL as she wants specifics put in that the standard contract does not cover.
LL to provide all credit referencing necessary to be done online.
No one from the LA showed me around the property, the LL did.
LL wishes to use their own maintenance suppliers

Why did the LL even employ the LA then? He'll have to pay a percentage of the rent to them every month and they aren't even managing the property?

tbs624

nervousmother wrote: »

...... the rental market would be a worse place without the 'middleman'. Landlords have peace of mind knowing we will sort out any issues & collect rent, Tenants know they have someone to approach easily about problems at property and know all legal checks are carried out.

That's a huge generalisation: many Ts and LLs would disagree that the rental market would be a worse place without LAs. Tenants often prefer to deal with the LL direct - it can be quicker and more efficient ( & cheaper for both parties).LLs who are serious about what they do do not need someone in a town centre office to sort out their "legal checks" for them and know their own properties ( & potential problem areas) better than any LA will do. We see plenty of posts on here from both LLs and Ts that clearly demonstrate the woeful lack of awareness of LL&T law within many LA offices..

Your business costings didn't include enough general information on the number of staff, annual turnover etc, nor any professional fees or *training* course fees.......but then you seem to have chosen not to address the lack of qualification or expertise that many LAs demonstrate on a daily basis.

haddock22

Dont forget also the fees that la charge for a final inventory check to the tenant .My son has ust discovered this at his cost 40 pound plus vat.Also the 1.8 percent charged by the la for paying the deposit by visa.This is iwith a la in southampton

hdhrcjj

As a landlord, I find the concept of charging a tennant a letting fee abhorrent. The agents also charge the landlord a fee for finding the tennant. I don't begrudge them money for the work they do, or the risk they take in not finding a tennant, but I have engaged letting agents who have done less, shown the property less and generally not cared about how the property is presented etc. and for this they charge me a fee and the tennant.

Previous posts are correct - any fee charged to the tennant is money they can't spend on rent and as letting agents charge a % of the monthly rent as a fee, they are in fact doing themselves out of money as it reduces the amount a tennant is able to pay for a given property.

In other countries the tennant is not charged a fee. Good agencies don't charge an employee a recruiting fee, only the employer and this is the same. I won't do business with an estate agent that charges tennants fees, particularly not in this market where the tennant has so much choice. Its about time estate agents woke up to the fact that most of their revenue right now is coming from lettings and they need to focus on this part of the market - advertise and promote properties intelligently and treat customers with respect. After all at the end of the day its the tennant who'll fund the fee paid to estate agents by the landlord.

BTW don't ever use an estate agent (e.g. Boulevard Property Services in Milton Keynes) who are not registed as required by law - they are cowboys.

subjecttocontract

I'm a landlord and I employ my letting agent to find tenants for me and to handle all the admin associated with letting.

They charge a tenant £160 and it includes dealing with/ handling:

Processing the application form
Liaising with all the parties
Obtaining referencies
Rent guarantee insurance
Arranging for guarantors
Drawing up the contract
Taking deposit and protecting it
S21 notice
Standing order forms
etc etc.

It does involve quite a lot of work.

Snakeeyes21

ive never used a letting agent, ive always went direct to a LL, not only is there no admin fees to pay but the rent is often up to 10 percent cheaper.
those LL that have charged fees they have been the true cost of them.
the LL has always done their check in / out with inventorys etc.