Rent in Scotland? Claim back unlawful upfront fees by letting agents.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

tbs624 wrote: »

Presumably those 18000 properties are just those let via Reeds Rains/ Your Move. Some may view it as folly to extrapolate these figures to try to give a definitive "here's what rents are doing nationally"

Some may, although I suspect they'd have an ulterior motive for doing so.

Particularly as it's worth noting that 18,000 properties is a larger sample size than that of the the Halifax and Nationwide monthly indices put together in recent times.

rentergirl

Letting agents charging fees to tenants have been illegal since 1984, and agents ignore it. The fees have no relation to actual costs (same as England) and can be £200 for credit check which costs about £2. The idea is that landlords, who benefit and profit from accrued equity pay the costs. Otherwise, it's liek charging an entrance fee to a supermarket. Am agents try and weasel out by saying: it's a grey area, you can't reclaim as you agreed to pay, or it's an admin fee etc. None of this is true. There are now to many agents, and that is why fees have risen. Charge the landlords, and use one of the many emerging online letting sites.

gamma

I think these charges should be down to the Landlord, and if they don't like it, they should rent privately.

Rents may increase slightly, but competition would balance it out again. Rental agencies are springing up almost at the speed of high street betting shops, because they're unregulated and you can easily start up by reading up on some legislation.

They're now trying to get around the tenancy deposit scheme - see here
http://www.scotsman.com/news/tenants-fury-at-500-checkout-charge-fee-1-2456010

Would you pay a mobile phone operator, £200 for a credit check and admin fees before taking out a contract?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I contacted my LL directly recently about the rip-off renewal fee (utterly unnecessary as the rent remained unchanged) and they were shocked at the behaviour of the agent (which included outright verbal lies). Many LLs genuinely have no idea that agents are charging both LL and tenant for the same (usually unnecessary) thing. A sensible LL wants to keep a reliable tenant rather than rip them off with spurious fees at every opportunity.

tbs624

gamma wrote: »

Rental agencies are springing up almost at the speed of high street betting shops, because they're unregulated and you can easily start up by reading up on some legislation.

Unfortunately, some of those who set up in business as LAs don't even bother with that "reading up"..............

We get to read about them on here, with posts from both LLs and Ts.

tbs624

rentergirl wrote: »

Letting agents charging fees to tenants have been illegal since 1984, and agents ignore it. The fees have no relation to actual costs (same as England) and can be £200 for credit check which costs about £2. s.

My bolding. A third party credit referencing fee will cost a LL from between 16 quid and 60 quid, depending on how in depth the referencing is. I would agree that there should be no mark up on that fee but it would be reasonable IMO for a T to be expected to pay for that. Some LLs will reimburse a T if there is a successful signing up to a tenancy - the LL can of course put the costs down as an expense for tax purposes

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

And..... As predicted.

Scottish rents soaring after the ban on fees started being enforced.

THE average rent in the Capital has gone up by more than five per cent in the last measured quarter, pricing many residents out of decent accommodation.

Housing experts had already raised fears that the tightening of legislation regarding fees charged by letting agents would lead to costs being passed on to residents through rent hikes.

A recent report from lettings website Citylets shows these concerns may be well-founded, with the average tenant in Edinburgh now paying £819 per month for accommodation.

The only city with higher rents north of the Border is Aberdeen, where renters can expect to pay £899 for a lease, an increase of 6.3 per cent, compared with Edinburgh’s 5.1 per cent. Glasgow occupants are now paying an average of £612, a 2.2 per cent increase.

Dan Cookson, Citylets’ senior 
analyst, said the rises seem directly related to the “banning of agent fees”.

He said: “Our report for the last quarter of 2012 is significant in that it is the first to cover a period after the changes in the sector in 2012 took hold.

“Two cities have seen some of the biggest rises in rents – Edinburgh and Aberdeen – and these annual increases are the largest experienced in either city during the last five years.

There is a suspicion that the recent banning of agent fees to tenants has had an upward impact on rents. Several agent clients have suggested this to be the case and our data seems to support this view.

http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/latest-news/average-rent-in-city-up-5-in-a-year-1-2749043

whalster

I have said many times on here that regulating fees in England like Scotland would benefit me , it does now to be fair as tenants seek out private landlords like me who have never charged the fees associated with an agent .I had four viewings yesterday on one that has been empty a week but only available a day or two after turnaround , one of them took it the others all asked for names and numbers of other private landlords in the area a good lot of whom I know and do the same for me .
So bring on the regulation hike the fees to the landlords increase the rents , it will only make our advantage greater and hopefully make property investors because really that's what they are not landlords become landlords and let out their own property .