Renting - Renewal Charges

Shawz

Can anyone explain how letting agents can justify renewal charges of £50 - £100 for printing a new contract and putting it in the post.
I would of thought the costs would be £10 - £20 max.

Any thoughts or comments

kimbadger

I would also love to know how they justify this.

I posted yesterday about this very topic only to find that there appears to be nothing I can do. So, I've just had to pay the letting agents £120 to renew our tenancy or we would be homeless in a couple of months. I think it's absolutely disgusting that letting agents are able to charge as much as they like for a minute amount of work. I will be reporting them to the Office of Fair Trading for this and some other reasons (eg, when we do leave, they want to charge us £130 for an inventory check on our UNFURNISHED one bedroom flat - absurd!)

GRRRRR!

I'm normally a very calm and tolerant person, but this has really wound me up!

Shawz

Perhaps we should take the same view as bank charges and try and reclaim them

psychostudy

Posted before about this - my former agent HOMES 4 U charge one weeks rent plus VAT - a total for me of £189.19. I paid this last year only to have their stupid agents showing potential new tenants round two weeks later!

Not all agencies charge too much. My new agency - PRESTIGE PROPERTY charge nothing and I know of others in the Manchester area that also charge very little.

I think it's a good idea to get some kind of campaign started off. It is disgraceful that inefficient money grabbing agencies can take this much money from renters for virtually nothing. There should be some sort of standardisation. I think its probably wishful thinking though and the only way to make a stand against these charges is vote with your feet. I'll never be using Homes 4 U again, give bad reviews to those thinking of using them and great reviews for the fairer agencies. Sometime someone in the bad agencies might cotton on that a fair and efficient service is far more likely to make them money than crap service and unfair charges. I live for that day!

diesel9181

i had to pay this to the letting agent (it my property) not sure if the tenant had to pay it aswell. I paid £50 which i suppose isnt that much but if the tenant had to pay aswell the agent is laughing.

movilogo

This is the first time I'm hearing that EAs charging fees for rent renewal!

Usually after first 6 month's of tenancy, it becomes roll forward by default. At most you'll receive a letter stating the same from EA.

Jenny_S

Got the same problem here, well almost. We are trying to move house due to a new job, there seems to be one big letting agent in the town we want to move to. Unfortunately thier fees are £245 for setting up the initial contract including reference checks etc, and then every 6 months there is a £50 fee. I think this is way over the top, but they seem to have all the nice properties, whereas other agents have very few, and usually more overpriced.

Another issue altogether is they are saying they might not be able to take us due to my partner not being in his current job for more than 6 months!! It makes me so angry because we are priced out of the market, so are forced to pay market rent. It's not easy.

alijay_3

As a letting agent myself, I think it's disgusting that many of the high street names enforce these rediculous charges - it is quite simply printing off a document & posting it - £20 is ample.
There is no reason why an agreement should have to be re-issued unless either you or the LL has specifically requested it. Standard practice is for the AST to become a Periodic Tenancy at the end of the original term. Basically that means all the conditions of the original agreement still stand without having an additional fixed period to stick to.