Agency 'application and referencing fees' - am I entitled to a breakdown?

Vectis

stator wrote: »

Pretty standard practice though. Most estate agents and landlords are very shady.

It would be easy to make a similar remark about most tenants being 'very shady'.

But, of course, most of us would realise that would be a pretty stupid generalisation to make.

Guest101

stator wrote: »

Pretty standard practice though. Most estate agents and landlords are very shady.

I'd say the vast majority of landlords are far from shady. You rarely hear about the perfect LL afterall.

Agents.... usually are not maliciously 'shady', they just dont know. There's no official training qulification, so its basically personal knowledge and word of mouth/on the job training.

I've had letter before claiming things were a 'legal requirement', when clearly not.
- my response was always the same: show me where this is stated and i'll happily comply.

9/10 they would come back and apologise, saying that after some research they admit their mistake. Common 'facts' are often chinese whispers.


There are also plenty of tenants who are worse than shady and use the protections afforded them to seriously compromise the LL's position

brutal_deluxe

LOL

OK um well changing the flow slightly..

Afraid I emailed the LL directly and asked if they would take my application directly (with credit checks etc) just as a last ditch thing.

Unfortunately I let rip a little and said I felt that their agents were now ignoring my inquiries regarding the fee and if any of it gets refunded if successful. I also expressed how I thought the fees were 'exorbitant' and they could be missing out on strong applications because of it.

After my blind rage had cooled, I'm now worried the email could be looked at as libellous? Hopefully just me being paranoid!?

Oh dear

BD

Voyager2002

brutal_deluxe wrote: »

LOL

OK um well changing the flow slightly..

Afraid I emailed the LL directly and asked if they would take my application directly (with credit checks etc) just as a last ditch thing.

Unfortunately I let rip a little and said I felt that their agents were now ignoring my inquiries regarding the fee and if any of it gets refunded if successful. I also expressed how I thought the fees were 'exorbitant' and they could be missing out on strong applications because of it.

After my blind rage had cooled, I'm now worried the email could be looked at as libellous? Hopefully just me being paranoid!?

Oh dear

BD

I don't think you should worry about the 'libel' aspect: for that to cause you any trouble the landlord would have to go to all the bother of telling the agent, and then the agent would have to make the decision to prosecute... really, it is not going to happen.

However, your email will have been a waste of time. The agent would not have allowed you to have the landlord's contact details unless they were confident that the landlord was bound by a contract preventing a direct agreement. So unless the agent does something that seriously upsets the landlord, you will not get anywhere.

In sum: most letting agents require a fairly substantial sum of money as a down-payment before you get the keys to a property, and this will generally be closer to a thousand pounds than a couple of hundred. However, you ought not to have to pay more than the cost of a credit search if you apply but are not offered the tenancy.

audigex

ognum wrote: »

What a rediculous thing to say. Of course their are bad agents and LLs and tenants but not most by any means!

I have experience with 12 EA/Landlord combinations, and of those just 2 were good. The others were, every single one, horrendous, money grabbing, dishonest and frankly bordering on fraudulent.

Those 2 good ones were a landlord renting his parents' old house to students, and the other a small family run company which owned a dozen houses and rented rooms in them out as house shares.

The other 10 charged ridiculous fees, took "application" fees from multiple applicants for the same property and pocketed the lot, despite knowing some applicants had no chance. And between various other nonsense regarding repairs, rent hikes, attempts to withhold deposits etc, the entire thing just seemed like an exercise to extract the maximum possible amount of money out of tenants, knowing they had a captive market and their tenants are usually young, busy and naive enough to not make too much fuss.

I'm fairly strong on consumer rights, able to write a convincing letter of complaint and willing to stand up for myself, but I can see others without my interest in the legal side of things, confidence and English skills being completely walked on and taken advantage of.

Obviously 12 isn't representative of the entire industry, but considering that they were spread over 5 towns up to 200 miles apart, I think I'd agree with "most" in the post quoted...

The strange thing: the bad ones all had one thing in common: a letting agency/estate agent was involved in all 10. The times I dealt directly with the landlord I had absolutely no problems.

stator

I've only had two good landlords in my whole life and one of them was my mum.
The other was a student landlord. The rest have been awful, whether using an agent or not.

Guest101

brutal_deluxe wrote: »

LOL

OK um well changing the flow slightly..

Afraid I emailed the LL directly and asked if they would take my application directly (with credit checks etc) just as a last ditch thing.

Unfortunately I let rip a little and said I felt that their agents were now ignoring my inquiries regarding the fee and if any of it gets refunded if successful. I also expressed how I thought the fees were 'exorbitant' and they could be missing out on strong applications because of it.

After my blind rage had cooled, I'm now worried the email could be looked at as libellous? Hopefully just me being paranoid!?

Oh dear

BD

No. It's not libel.

You are entitled to have an opinion and share it.

Guest101

audigex wrote: »

I have experience with 12 EA/Landlord combinations, and of those just 2 was good. The others were, every single one, horrendous, money grabbing, dishonest and frankly bordering on fraudulent.

Those 2 good ones were a landlord renting his parents old house to students, and the other a small family run company which owned a dozen houses and rented rooms in them out as house shares.

The other 10 charged ridiculous fees, took "application" fees from multiple applicants for the same property and pocketed the lot, despite knowing some applicants had no chance. And between various other nonsense regarding repairs, rent hikes, attempts to withhold deposits etc, the entire thing just seemed like an exercise to extract the maximum possible amount of money out of tenants, knowing they had a captive market.

Obviously 12 isn't representative of the entire industry, but considering that they were spread over 5 towns up to 200 miles apart, I think I'd agree with "most" in the post quoted...

The strange thing: the bad ones all had one thing in common: a letting agency/estate agent was involved in all 10. The times I dealt directly with the landlord I had absolutely no problems.

I dont know your background, or where you lived or anything about you.

What i do know is Agents and LLs take advantage only of people in a position to be taken advantage of.

So if you are unaware of your rights. If you are in a position of weakness (EG multiple pets, children, benefits etc) which would make moving difficult. And if you are looking at lower end properties. - Then that combination puts the LL at an advntage, and is the criteria bad landlords look for to extract maximum money.

audigex

Oh that's fine, then, as long as they only try to gouge the vulnerable and meek!

Although in my case it seems to be getting worse as I move up the ladder: I was treated perfectly reasonably as a student and new graduate in shared housing, then when trying to rent flats or houses as a working professional ran into these moral-less vampire agencies.

Agencies were in the North West and Midlands, I can only imagine them being worse in London/The South East where demand for properties is higher and they have more opportunities to take advantage of multiple applicants at once!

DRP

Guest101 wrote: »

I dont know your background, or where you lived or anything about you.

What i do know is Agents and LLs take advantage only of people in a position to be taken advantage of.

So if you are unaware of your rights. If you are in a position of weakness (EG multiple pets, children, benefits etc) which would make moving difficult. And if you are looking at lower end properties. - Then that combination puts the LL at an advntage, and is the criteria bad landlords look for to extract maximum money.

If you know your rights and try to enforce them, then isn't there quite a risk you won't ever be the successful applicant for the property...?

An agent/LL is unlikely to want a 'difficult' tenant?