Ban on buy to let agency fee's for tenants

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Don't forget that agents cheerfully rip LLs off as well as tenants; any scrutiny of their ludicrous fees benefits both parties.

Masomnia

theEnd wrote: »

Excellent news.

I once got charged £500 non refundable credit check charge.
Was too desperate for a place to argue.

That's how they get away with it, they know they've got you over a barrel and can charge what they want, and they'll never advertise what their fees are.

A mate of mine when he moved to London had no job, but he had savings, and agreed to pay the first 3 months up front which he was happy to do, paid admin fees. Then his landlord then wanted to charge him a further £150 to do a credit check, he said that obviously he was going to fail it, and he was paying three months up front so what was the point?

Of course she was insistent that he pay and she do the check, or someone else would be getting the place... I'd be surprised if she even did it.

mrginge

Masomnia wrote: »

That's one way of putting it!

It's my diplomatic nature lol

fun4everyone

These fees have been cracked down on in Scotland for a while, this is great if it happens.

mwpt

Excellent news.

And "ha ha", check out foxtons share price today.
http://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=LON%3AFOXT&ei=pHE1WMipFNfKUcCUspAD

Crashy_Time

steampowered wrote: »

Absolutely brilliant news.

Letting agent fees will now be factored into rents. I think this is a good thing because landlords are able to shop around for the cheapest agent; tenants can't. I doubt landlords would accept paying hundreds of pounds for a quick reference check.

Tenants can shop around for the cheapest private landlord, any landlord trying to add extras (like the agents do) will be left in the dust. Fees have been banned in Scotland for years, and my rent hasn`t gone anywhere for....well years.

Crashy_Time

chucknorris wrote: »

We don't use letting agents, but obviously we need to vet our tenants, what we do is offer them 2 options:

1. Submit 3 months of bank statements (no fee).

If they don't want to do that, then:

2. Pay for a tenancy credit check (just the net fee charged to us). I forget how much they are (I think about £15 to £25 plus VAT), because not one tenant of our 7 investment properties has ever elected for option 2 (we have 8 investment properties but our MIL used to live in the 8th property).

Anyone can keep their bank account use looking good for a couple of months to fool a landlord then revert back to spending everything before the rent is paid.

chucknorris

Crashy_Time wrote: »

Anyone can keep their bank account use looking good for a couple of months to fool a landlord then revert back to spending everything before the rent is paid.

No they can't, people who are really struggling financially, simply can't do that, and as our market is professional sharers, that means 2 or 3 different set of bank statements are being checked (not just one). Our system has served us well, over numerous properties for many many years.

GreatApe

Hopefully with a lower upfront cost more tenants will be able to get into the market and bid up prices....

westernpromise

I remember when we looked around for a rental 10 years ago being shown around various places by Foxtons. Not until we saw one we liked was a fee of about £500 mentioned. We rented elsewhere.

I think the devil with this will be in the detail though. While today's vague and opaque fees should certainly not be allowed, I am not sure what stops the landlord simply requiring the tenant to produce in-date CRB, credit check and employer's references as a condition of letting. There is then no fee per se, and the landlord gets the same comfort as now.

It's not actually a "buy to let agency" fee, though, is it?