Administration Fee's For Renewing Tennancy - HELP

Rie**

Please, please, please, is there anybody out there who can give me some advice on the administration fee's that letting agents apply to renewal of tennancies?
I'm at my whitts end as I feel so helpless and am more angry that people have to just put up with them saying "It's an administration fee" and expecting people to accept it and part with their money.

I have lived in my rented property for 2 years, in two months time the tennancy is due for renewal and the letting agents want a £125 administration fee!
I just don't understand, what is it they are actually charging me for and why does it vary depending on the agency?
I have asked them for a written copy of exactly what my money would be paying for but I find the whole thing completely unfair and more of a scam that agents are just getting away with!
They're getting as bad as the banks with charges they seem to think they can justify.
I'm not going to let this rest, I want to take it further but I just have no idea where to start, surely if it's an administration charge then they shouldn't be profiting from it so why does one agent charge £40, another £50, another £125 and another a completely different price?
Any advice would be greatfully received

G_M

Read:

Ending/Renewing an AST (what happens when the Fixed Term ends?)(What is a Periodic Tenancy?)(How can a LL remove a tenant?)(How can a tenant end a tenancy?)

By-pass the agency and talk to your landlord if possible.

Fire_Fox

You don't have to renew anything, if/ when you are out of the fixed term you are automatically in a statutory periodic tenancy. Just ignore the requests to renew or if you want another fixed term contract bypass the monkey and talk to the organ grinder as G_M says.

Rie**

Thanks guys,
I'm going to speak to my landlady tomorrow, I get on pretty well with her so I'll see what she has to say.

Rie**

So, I thought I'd leave an update just in case anyone else has a similar problem.
First of all I received a letter from Countrywide. This letter was what I had requested and should have been a detailed, itemised account of what my money was paying for. They failed to complete this request and instead sent me a letter explaining what it is they do and not what it costs!
So my £125 and my landlady's £125 was to be paid for the following tasks (Bearing in mind that I ALWAYS reply immediately) Firstly, they look into the current market (This is where nine times out of ten they increase the monthly rent whether it needs increasing or not!) Then they contact the landlord, then they write to the tenant. Ok, so none of this is really not already part of their job so I find it hard to understand why these excercises are "administration fees"
Now, following the letter, if I don't reply within 2 weeks (Which I do) they then call me. If unable to contact me then they write again (So none of this really applies to me, but they want to charge me anyway!)
Then after that, if I and my Landlady agree it takes 40-50 minutes to produce a new 18 page document......... ALL THEY ARE GOING TO DO IS USE AN ALREADY SAVED DOCUMENT AND CHANGE THE DATES!!!
Oh, and then after all that, they MIGHT need to chase unsigned documents.
Seriously, is this really justified as a £250 administration charge between myself and my landlady? Half of what they want to charge me for won't be necessary anyway!
So, thanks to the guys above and their advice, I contacted my landlady. She was unaware that she was going to be charged for this too and the letting agents had not made her aware of a rolling on tennancy........ so I did!!! She then contacted the estate agents and within a few hours they had managed to drop my £125 fee to £50, WOW, funny that!! They still wanted to keep my landlady's fee at £125 and also informed her of the rolling on tennancy but only because she'd asked about it and they have agreed to allow us to do this.
During all these correspondants my landlady also contacted a solicitor about renting her property herself and getting rid of the agents (The agents stated in the letter that a solicitor would charge more than them to draw up a contract) the solicitors told her they'd charge £75.
Because of this I have now lost all faith in estate agents, I feel they have lied to both myself and my landlady to get as much money as they can out of us unfairly. As far as I'm concearned "administration fees" should not be profited on and clearly the estate agents that charge such ridiculous prices are profiting.
I have also joined to campaign with Shelter who are trying to put a stop to all these unfair fees. I can't post a link as I'm new to the site but if anyone's interested it's called Letting Away With It and the website has a lot of useful information about your rights as a tenant.

braun_2

I've had a similar issue today with an estate agent wanting to charge me £480 for a new tenancy. They are getting away with too much, they should be made to state their fees, what they are for and how much things cost.

All they do is print out a 10 year old tenancy agreement with your name at the top, this should cost a fiver tops, not £125.

Credit checks don't cost anywhere near the £120 or so i was quoted and an inventory of the property shouldn't take more than 1-2 hours which isn't highly skilled work.

tbs624

Rie** wrote: »

Because of this I have now lost all faith in estate agents, I feel they have lied to both myself and my landlady to get as much money as they can out of us unfairly.

Your LL needs to do some research of her own on Statutory Periodic Agreements - your tenancy can continue under the same terms as the preceding Fixed Term, save for determination, ie how and when the tenancy may be brought to an end by either party. No fees need to be paid by her or you because a SPA arises automatically under statute, where a Fixed Term expires, the T remains in situ and no new FT agreement is signed up to. It is your LL who has the ultimate choice in how this tenancy proceeds, not the LA.

I have also joined to campaign with Shelter who are trying to put a stop to all these unfair fees. I can't post a link as I'm new to the site but if anyone's interested it's called Letting Away With It and the website has a lot of useful information about your rights as a tenant.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/fixing_private_renting/letting_away_with_it

Rie**

Braun - £480!! My God that's disgusting!! I really hope you can fight it to bring it down, if you actually have to pay it at all! Make sure that you demand an itemised account of what exactly your money is being spent on.

Thanks tbs624, Thankfully I get on really well with my landlady and she's pretty annoyed with it all too. I said to her that at the end of the day, she is in charge, it is her property so what she says goes. She will more than likely agree to the tenancy just continuing without a new fixed term or she'll get rid of them completely. I've already told her if I've got to pay that kind of money to the estate agents I'd rather pay it to her to get a solicitor do it for her and ditch the robbing gits!

braun_2

Rie** wrote: »

Braun - £480!! My God that's disgusting!! I really hope you can fight it to bring it down, if you actually have to pay it at all! Make sure that you demand an itemised account of what exactly your money is being spent on.

I'm going to try and contact the owner direct, I'm sure I could print out a couple of tenancy agreements for a tenner and get them bound! Much less than the £120 the EA are charging!

I have filled in the shelter questionnaire and also submitted my story.... hope others do too.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/fixing_private_renting/letting_away_with_it

Rie**

braun wrote: »

I'm going to try and contact the owner direct, I'm sure I could print out a couple of tenancy agreements for a tenner and get them bound! Much less than the £120 the EA are charging!

I have filled in the shelter questionnaire and also submitted my story.... hope others do too.


Excellent! The more people that do, the more chance we have of getting something done about it.

Good luck, don't let them rip you off! :-)

Rie**

So, After agreeing to a statutory periodic tenancy my landlady and I got an email from our estate agents telling us that they had permission from their area director to drop the fee for the fixed term tenancy extention to £80 between us. (That's £40 EACH!!!! Quite a drop from £125 huh?) Clearly desperate to keep us tied to a contract but myself and my landlady have stuck to our guns and they have sent a letter confirming the Statutory Periodic Tenancy.
Still amazes me how they think they can get away with ripping people off, amazes me more how people just pay it without questioning too.
My landlady wants to ditch the estate agents but to do that she faces a fee of £500 but eventually we will get rid of them one way or another. They don't really do their job properly and I don't see the point in my landlady paying the middle man to do a job and having to bypass them to get things done.
For anybody out there with similar problems...... don't give up and DON'T let them rip you off! I didn't