£100 Credit Check!!!

tbs624

Don't just bleat about the fees on here guys and gals - get onto your own MP and the Housing Minister. Let Shelter's and CAB campaigns offices know of your experiences. Call for regulation and transparency on LA fees.

Start an online petition - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/ - 100,000 signatures on the topic should be easily achievable.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ - postcode brings up your own MP and of course Grant Shapps is the Housing Minister

Make a point of flagging up LAs extortionate fees, in the local and national press

You know you want to ......

And best of all, you could of course avoid using LAs whenever you can. Ask local Councils for list of accredited private sector LLs, try the local and/or national LL associations for contact info for LLs who self manage and place your own "wanted " ads.

tbs624

Eton_Rifle wrote: »

Some of them may even have risked their lives to try and save all of us rather than just to earn money for themselves.

:rotfl: :rotfl: Really ER? I reckon a good proportion of those who work as LAs do so because they are qualified for nothing else.

Finding new ways to add ever increasing fees for both LL and T to cough up for became endemic as the property market began to stagnate. Have yet to meet a philanthropic LA, or one who would lay his life down for others.

tbs624

skintmumof2 wrote: »

The only way round it if they really like the house is to go direct to the landlord and do your own private credit checks. This does depend on if the house is agent managed by the agency or if the landlord is just paying them to find a suitable tenant. If its the latter then you and the landlord can do the checks yourself if he has no other interested tenants.

It makes no difference whether there may be other interested Ts. LLs can use the same third party referencing firms as those used by the LAs - the difference is that the self managing LLs tend to charge the T only the actual costs, rather than "cost plus astronomical mark up just because I can"

private renting is a pig with repairs etc at least with an agency you ring the agency and they sort it out.

Many Ts find that dealing direct with the LL expedites the repairs process. The fact that an LA is in the equation is absolutely no guarantee that a speedy resolution will be achieved- sometimes that will be down the LL but often its the LA at fault.

tbs624

business_man wrote: »

Regulations are already in place, with different regulatory bodies such as ARLA, NAEA and the Property Ombudsman.

My post was not referring to voluntary self "regulation".

There is absolutely no obligation on any LA to sign up to ARLA et al and some view the "self regulatory" schemes as fairly toothless

Note that ARLA itself has "long called for increased regulation in the sector " and the chairman of the TPO's board has said

“We have reached the stage where this can no longer be left to industry goodwill or voluntary membership bodies which are not, and never have been, the regulators that some imagine them to be." and

“TPO is a redress scheme and has never suggested it is a regulator" (source)

Any fool can currently operate as an LA, and many fools do

business_man wrote: »

UK is a free market and hence things like EA fees, payday loan interest rates, cash buyer company offering you 50%, plumber charging double etc can't be controlled.

As Foxtons discovered, a lack of transparency over LA fees can (and should) be acted upon.

Scotland has legislation which is designed to curb the charging of spurious fees, and there is a current campaign on the issue.

When this Govt decided not to do anything about regulating letting agencies here's what Mr Shapp apparently declared

"..... the vast majority of England's three million private tenants (are) happy with the service they receive..."

Those who aren't happy should let him know.:)

Existing e-petition on LA regulation, albeit not specifically on fees here

whalster

I must say that you never said anything about them being charged an admin fee this can also be a fortune , find a private landlord , there is a cost in time involved but to be fair it maybe takes us 20 mins. to check out an application it costs me £ 8 per check from private landlord directory £ 10 from RLA who I use a lot other than that it is just phone calls , we charge £20 per person which I think is fair and a £30 admin fee which more or less covers the registration fee of the bond. The comparison with a supermarket is fine up to a point but supermarkets as a whole have driven down prices of food and non food items over the lst 50 years and at the same time increased choice , the letting agent market is still of the realms of the corner shop .

tbs624

whalster wrote: »

we charge £20 per person which I think is fair and a £30 admin fee which more or less covers the registration fee of the bond.

Given that the LL, rather than the T, chooses which [typo edit: scheme] is used, why do you think it fair to charge the T when you could simply opt for the free to use DPS? You can of course set the fee down on your tax return: the T cannot.

qwertyjjj

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

My son is coming out of the British Army soon, and he and his partner have been looking to rent a flat or house in this area.

They have been to view a property today. Rent is £475pm with a £500 deposit, both of which they were prepared for. However, they were also told by the Estate Agent that they want £100 each for a credit check.

When they told me, I exploded and said the Estate Agents were thieving bas**rds as it costs about a fiver to have this done. I know they have the money to pay but it really annoys me that my lad has just come back from Afghanistan and these creeps are trying to screw money out of him that he risked his life to earn while they sit in their warm little offices.

Is this normal? It's not something I've come across before. I said they should tell them to stuff the place and tell the Landlord he's lost a tenant because of the Agent's greed.

It's normal because the good non complaining British people never bothered to refuse it so now all agents charge it and I'd say 99% of stupid punters accept it.
You can try and reduce it but good luck getting the agents to come down...they know some other punter will pay it quite happily.

poppasmurf_bewdley

qwertyjjj wrote: »

It's normal because the good non complaining British people never bothered to refuse it so now all agents charge it and I'd say 99% of stupid punters accept it.
You can try and reduce it but good luck getting the agents to come down...they know some other punter will pay it quite happily.

As I said earlier, they've told the EA to stick their charges where the sun doesn't shine. They're going to concentrate on Landlords who do their own letting - of which there seems to be quite a few. They have just got a list of them from the council, as suggested on here.

duchy

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

As I said earlier, they've told the EA to stick their charges where the sun doesn't shine. They're going to concentrate on Landlords who do their own letting - of which there seems to be quite a few. They have just got a list of them from the council, as suggested on here.

Good luck.
The house next door to mine is owned by LL's who don't want to pay agent's fees . They own several properties and all are tenented by people who for one reason or another can't/won't get a credit-check. They don't want to pay agent fees, or protect deposits, or maintain the property, or care what happens to the property just "as long as we get our rent".

Amateur landlords can cause a lot of grief and expense to tenents when things go wrong. If you end up having to take legal advice (far more likely in this scenario) that £100 creditcheck may seem cheap by comparison.

tbs624

Eton_Rifle wrote: »

Just as long as they realise that having a letting agent on call, who is theoretically on their side too, can be worth a couple of hundred pounds up front........An intermediary may be particularly advantageous if you're tenant who is a little wet behind the ears.

Except that the LA's job is of course to act on behalf of the LL - they do not have the Ts interests at heart. Although a rare intelligent LA may empathise with the T who has a lousy LL, it is the LL who is the true paymaster of the LA ( despite the fees levied on the T)