Admin fees for renting.

slyracoon

Caveat_Mortgagor wrote: »

I cant believe everyone has said just pay it, especially as you have stated you have a low income.

Like everything in life, those fees are negotiable. Especially when the cost to the agent will only be about £10!

Depends where you live and the demand in that area. Where I live in the south of England good rental propertys are snapped up within days of being advertised, if you refuse to pay the fees theres always a handful of other people waiting. Maybe if its a less desirable area and its been advertised for a while then negotiation might work.

Smoosh

Thank you everyone for your help

We're going to phone them again today and ask if there'll be any other fees (obviously other than the deposit), before we part with any money for the admin fees. We did already ask if the money would be refundable should we fail any of their checks, and they stated that they wouldn't refund it because the money goes to their solicitors and other people and doesn't actually benefit them.

I don't think we have to worry about renewal fees or anything as the tenancy is only for 6 months and after that we plan on moving to a new house?

It's hard for us to sort anything out in person as we both live near London at the moment, so it's a 2 hour drive up there for my boyfriend, and a 3 hour drive for me, which complicates things a bit!

PompeyPete

Me and the Mrs are off to North Wales on Sunday, and have appointments to view several properties on Monday and Tuesday.
We're willing to pay 6 months + deposit upfront.
No animals, not DSS, non-smokers, no dependent children.

We want to keep our costs to a minimum, and will be taking the following to support our rental application:

Passports;
Register of Title for our current property, which we own outright;
Letter from our Estate Agent confirming we have accepted an offer of £182K for our house;
Investment Bond for £200K (matures in 12 months);
Register of Electors confirmation;
Up to date Bank Statements (3) covering last 6 months, all are continually in the black and total £17K;
Credit Card statement - Nil balance, paid by DD every month;
Confirmation of Armed Forces pension (I can't lose my job!).

Is there anything else I could take?

We could be exchanging contracts with our buyer pdq and will be expected to complete just as pdq!

I realise there will be an admin fee charged by the rental agent. But should it still be necessary for us to be credit checked, and references sought.

Cheers

BitterAndTwisted

Yes, if they've got any sense they will credit-check you and charge you fees for it. They could take up references so be prepared to be asked to provide them.

PompeyPete

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Yes, if they've got any sense they will credit-check you and charge you fees for it.

That's what I don't understand. I'm going to provide the Rental Agent with original documents proving that we're worth £400K cash, that we keep our finances in order, and are also willing to pay 6 months + deposit up front.
So the credit check is just a complete waste of our money, and creates a time delay on completing the deal. That in itself isn't really working for their client.

Gigglepig

This is something that has annoyed me for some time. In my view, estate agents' advertising is very misleading. If the rental is for say a 12 month initial lease, they ought to be legally required to advertise the average monthly cost including all these "extras" as opposed to just the "rent".

Often, the list of fees are not readily available and one only finds out about them after one has already spent time and effort viewing properties and found one to move into.

For example - a 12 month lease say of 500 per month plus 200 admin fee and 100 inventory fee = 500x12 + 200+100 divided by 12 is the true cost per month and hence they should IMO be obliged to show this cost.

Horseygirl_2

For my rented flat I paid:
Deposit: £600 (£495 rent rounded up to the nearest £100 then add £100)
First months rent: £495
Agency fees: £130

ETS: I dont begrudge paying these fees as they are handling all the paperwork for me (council tax, electric etc) and that really helps me out.

GillsMan7

slyracoon wrote: »

Also get the agent to confirm what admin fees you might be liable for once you are a tenant, many agents charge to renew contracts once your initial term expires (although you can refuse and move onto a periodic tenancy), exit inventory/check-out fees, late payment fees, etc. etc.

While it might seem good advice, I actually don't agree with this at all. If the charge isn't in the contract, the LA can't force you to pay it. E.g. if they want to charge you for a check-out, they must put this in the letting agreement. If they don't, they can't charge for it (or rather, they can, but if you refuse to pay, they can't make a deduction from your deposit, as no deposit protection agency will agree to their deduction if the contract didn't warn you of the cost). Simple as that. So I wouldn't ask them to confirm any fees personally.

Evansangel

I dont know why they charge that much. The house we are moving into next month was..
Admin fee (includes credit check) £25 each.
Holding fee (to be taken off deposit) £100
Tenancy fee (when we sign) £50.

The agency we are currently with charge for bloody everything! We have to pay a check out fee and a fee because they gave us a reference

Pupnik

Some agents are better than others at these things, when we were looking for a flat we ended up ruling out a lot of LAs just because of thir costs- for example the one we are in now had an admin fee of £120 for the flat while other had a similar fee PER PERSON, which doubled it as there are two of us. Our admin fee included the cost of references but we did have to pay extra for the credit check however it was nowhere near £200, that is ridiculously priced.