Letting Agent Increased rent without telling me

Crashy_Time

DaftyDuck wrote: »

I always let out just under the market value. That means tenants are always keen to stay, and therefore tend to look after the property well, keep the garden tidy, and are happy with me. I sleep at night, not because I am noble and charitable (I'm not; I'm a 5hit of the highest ordure), but because my property investment is well-cared for in more ways than one.

It also meant that voids were non-existent, I had a choice of tenants every time and, on the odd occasion there was some hiccough of some kind, both parties looked fondly on sorting it out amicably.

It also meant I had a good relationship with the tenants, which proved handy.

One became, for a while, my boss's boss!

Wish I'd squeezed him for the extra tenner a week. NOT!

He bought the bank? :rotfl:

GobbledyGook

It wouldn't matter to me the tenants situation - if the agent made a decision like that, which is completely out of line by then, I'd change it back just to make the point to them. Then I'd get a new agent at the first opportunity.

Letting agents are absolutely clueless about keeping tenants in my experience. I gave up with them and now deal with the tenants myself.

£25 a month is £900 over three years. In three years I've had no voids, no pre-tenancy painting, no hassle with credit checks and checking references, no meeting potential tenants and trying to suss them out - I've just had a reliable tenant who keeps the flat in great order, pays their rent on time, gets on well with their neighbours and doesn't give any hassle.

Annabee

Most letting agents are thinking of their own interests above those of their client the landlord. The more 'churn' there is - (new tenants coming in) the more they can charge both landlord and tenant I suppose in application fees, tenancy checkout fees etc. or whatever other spurious fees they can invent.

Miss_Samantha

DaftyDuck wrote: »

I always let out just under the market value.

Which implies regular, smallish rent increases.

FBaby

But if she had a rich-ex paying maintenance, she wouldn't be able to claim HB surely?

Yes she would. Child maintenance is disregarded from almost all benefits. She could be richer than you!

What is frustrating reading these threads is how LL who post with an issue resulting from a tenant who isn't prepared to be flexible gets an automatic 'well you are running a business, so treat it as such', yet when a poster reminds a flexible LL that they are running a business and should therefore treat it as such, they are being criticized.

I became a LL by default and initially considered it a win-win opportunity and managing it in a friendly and considerate way. It backfired twice badly when this approach was taken advantaged of. I now see that indeed, the only way to make it a hassle free transaction is to treat it purely as a business. It's not so nice for tenants but ultimately, it can't be only one direction.

I really do hope that it works for you OP because really that's how it SHOULD work, that win-win position, but call me cynical, I expect like most people I know who are LL, it will come to bite you and like most, you too will end up treating it as you would if you didn't know your customer's circumstances and only ran it to make profit.

Miss_Samantha

FBaby wrote: »

you too will end up treating it as you would if you didn't know your customer's circumstances and only ran it to make profit.

The issue, I think, is the degree of flexibility with regards to tenants' circumstances because you are indeed running a business.

If you have an otherwise good tenant who come to see you and explain that he's got problems and thus won't able to pay the rent in full this month but will pay the shortfall later, by all means be flexible.

Likewise, keeping the rent slightly below market may be a good idea.

On the other hand, once you find yourself thinking that you can no longer increase the rent at all because your tenant won't be able to afford it you are in a dead end: The discrepancy between the rent and the market will keep widening and that will make the tenant ever less likely to leave.
Then you need your business hat on and make a business decision as to whether this makes sense.

Pixie5740

It's not often I'm on the side of a letting agent but a few people have said the letting agent is out of lin and I'm not so sure they were. How do we know the letting agent was acting outside the contract between them and the OP? It very much hinges on what the OP has authorised the agent to do on his/her behalf in that contract.

C.C.L.

*~Zephyr~* wrote: »

No, they don't have Carte Blanche, they are just able to sign on my behalf to renew the AST. We set it up that way initially because I was out of the country when the tenant first moved in 4 years ago.

They are supposed to get my approval before doing anything else.

This from post #14 on page 1 says why Pixie5740.

Miss_Samantha

So they agreed a new fixed term AST and manage to have the tenant agree a modest rent increase at the same time.

Only on MSE can this lead to such drama.

In addition, if they have authority to agree a new fixed term AST arguably it is implied that it should be at the best rent they can achieve since they have a fiduciary duty to their principal.
Otherwise, I foresee another thread: "My agent renewed but did not increase the rent although rents have increased in the area!"

Crashy_Time

Annabee wrote: »

Most letting agents are thinking of their own interests above those of their client the landlord. The more 'churn' there is - (new tenants coming in) the more they can charge both landlord and tenant I suppose in application fees, tenancy checkout fees etc. or whatever other spurious fees they can invent.

Most of those fees are about to be banned though? My bet is the next move for many agents, before going out of business, will be to put pressure on sellers to drop prices, in the hope that they can make up the lost fees through sales commissions. Win Win IMO.