Landlord / Tenant Letting Agent fees: Your opinion? Worse / best? Name & shame them!

YoBear

This is my second post on here and having suggested this as an article on another link, found this sub-forum want to continue this attempt to thwart, IMHO one of the major rip-offs happening right now - Letting Agents and the fees they charge to BOTH Landlord and Tenant.

Feel free to name the best, the worse and their fees whether you are a Landlord Letting through an Agent or a Tenant.
Surely it would be useful to know what fees are being charged out there for comparison and how you may be being overcharged when the next person is not and going through the same Agent!

In the meantime, here is my updated rant I posted:


Having taken redundancy and relocated to the Brighton area I began looking to rent a small apartment.
There is a vibrant market and a lot of letting agents down here and I eventually found a suitable flat.
I asked for it and was asked to put down a holding deposit but being my first rental was gobsmacked to find the agent, Tingleys, wanted a fee of I think no less than £165 (+ VAT?) for credit references and to draw up an agreement which is in effect an extra £32.31 over six months on top of the rent!
I did take issue and tried to negotiate and boy, did they suddenly get VERY funny with me saying thats what they charge and thanks a lot for wasting their time - and she put the phone down on me!

Hang on here - I am also a Landlord and didn't these agents market their service and their fees to Landlords to do exactly that?

I thought I would phone the ARLA (Association of Residential Letting Agents) they belonged to and spoke to a representative there about it.

Apparently once upon a time Letting Agents didn't charge but then some started and the others followed.

I questioned whether the charge I was being asked for reasonable - the lady there replied that it was one of the most highest she had heard.

In effect she said there was nothing she could do but advised me to go back to Tingleys and ask them to justify and breakdown the charges. That sounds reasonable to me.

So I called back Tingleys. The girl I spoke to didn't really have a reply about the Landlord fees and their service and wouldn't answer how the charge was justified and said she could put me through to the MD which she did.

So I asked the MD to justify the charges. His reply was everyone else did and asked me to name some agencies which don't charge (he wasn't prepared for me to tell him of two agents who don't :rotfl: )

I then asked him to justify the and breakdown fee he was asking - he rudely replied he didn't have to justify and expalin anything to me. Would you believe it???!!!!
So that's how we parted.

Can you imagine anyone just saying, "£165 please.",
"What for?",
"I don't have to tell you that. £165 please"

In short - its a rip-off one way or another and not mentioned and realised when you set your heart on the property.

I basically walked away and so glad I did.
I found a lovely flat via a small private agent without a fee. :T Their service was exemporary I may add!

on another note I told the story to my tenants who are renting my place in London. They told me the agency that arranged my letting, Ludlow Thompson tried the same with them but waived the charge when they said they wouldn't move in....

So, do your bit and lets get the fees dropped!

I'm sorry if I've gone on a bit here. My apologies. I do feel much better to have told you all though!