Letting agent charging fees for work they're not doing

includemeout

Hi there

We found a property advertised online by an agency with a national presence. We've decided that we'd like to move there and I was asked to pay a £402 "holding deposit" to take the property off the market. While making the payment over the phone I was told by the agent that the landlord will be managing the property himself, including carrying out inventory checks and preparing the tenancy agreement, and he claimed that this would mean we would pay less fees to the agency. Good news!

A little while down the line I signed a "tenants holding deposit" document that shows that a fee of £192 (£96 each) will be taken from our deposit to cover referencing. The document also states "landlord own inventory" and "landlord own TA". In the box on the form where fee for tenancy agreement would normally go there is no figure. I assumed then that the remainder of the deposit would be returned to me and have queried this.

I received the following response:
"As you know, ******* is managing this property but still wants us to do the referencing, administration and process the legal documents for the tenancy. Usually we would just charge you £192.00 for the referencing but the other £210.00 is for the admin documents, equalling £402.00."

On the agent's website the only fees outlined relate to the referencing (£96 each), inventory and tenancy agreement (£210).

I went back to the landlord who said no, the agent simply advertised the property on his behalf and is carrying out referencing, he is handling everything else himself. Now that the referencing has been completed the landlord has stated that he has no further involvement with the agency and that we'll be dealing with him directly. He also encouraged me to have the agency return the £210 fee.

I've since gone back to the agency to query again why they are charging a fee for preparing legal documents and they have yet to respond to my email or return my calls. Before I take this further it would be reassuring to hear that I'm in the right here, there's no justification for charging that £210 fee is there? Particularly considering it's notably absent on the forms that I have signed.

Many thanks

nidO

Seems like a straightforward one, if the LA have told you they've charged you £210 for work their documentation says they aren't doing and the LL has said they aren't doing, get on with sending a letter before action to the LA's registered address giving them 7 days to return your money, if they ignore that submit a MCOL claim.

includemeout

Cheers for that, the threat of what you suggested led them to change their approach and they've conceded that the fees will be repaid.

There must be many people being ripped off who either aren't sufficiently informed or lack the confidence to query these fees...