What A Joke - Estate Admin Fees

byronwells

tomatta wrote: »

If you're not legally obliged to leave and your landlord wants to end your agreement early, have him pay the fees.

Really???????

Guest101

I don't get it, we don't expect free travel or free products, but people grumble about this

tomatta

byronwells wrote: »

Really???????

If you were the one leaving early you'd most likely be on the hook for fees and penalties. As Oakdene posted it all depends on your tenancy agreement. Have a good read of that and post anything you're unsure about here, you'll get more useful opinions/information that way

Pixie5740

Guest101 wrote: »

Why are you complaining?
If you don't like it, don't use the service

Tenants aren't using the service though. The landlord is using the service as it's the landlord who benefits from the referencing. The landlord chose the letting agent and it's the landlord who has a contract with the letting agent. Getting the tenant to pay is similar to vendors getting buyers to pay their estate agent fees.

Guest101 wrote: »

I don't get it, we don't expect free travel or free products, but people grumble about this

You can shop around for travel or products but tenants can't shop around for letting agents, landlords can though.

Pixie5740

OP, if you want to avoid paying referencing fees, or at least the very expensive fees charged by letting agents you have two options.

1) Move to Scotland where these fees are unlawful.

2) Find a landlord who doesn't use a letting agent. When searching on sites such as RightMove keep an eye out for the following "letting agents" UPad, OpenRent, Visium, LettingProperty.com, I Am The Agent. Those companies let landlords advertise directly on property websites so the landlord will do his/her own referencing which is likely to be a lot less expensive that a letting agent charges.

prosaver

usually, the tenant's agreement is only for a year, seems a bit steep might as well live a hotel like Alan Partridge. would be cheaper

Kalamazoo

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Tenants aren't using the service though. The landlord is using the service as it's the landlord who benefits from the referencing. The landlord chose the letting agent and it's the landlord who has a contract with the letting agent. Getting the tenant to pay is similar to vendors getting buyers to pay their estate agent fees.



You can shop around for travel or products but tenants can't shop around for letting agents, landlords can though.

Only a simpleton of the highest order would need this concept explaining to them

Guest101

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Tenants aren't using the service though. The landlord is using the service as it's the landlord who benefits from the referencing. The landlord chose the letting agent and it's the landlord who has a contract with the letting agent. Getting the tenant to pay is similar to vendors getting buyers to pay their estate agent fees.



You can shop around for travel or products but tenants can't shop around for letting agents, landlords can though.

Totally see your point, but going to be controversial slightly. I don't actually disagree with LA fees. I think the requirement to have the publicised and upfront was a great idea and I think it works.


I think tenants need to have longer term security and I agree that s.21 should be abolished.


I don't think tenants must use a letting agent, except where they want to have that specific property. Now I know that the government is consulting on fees, and in all likely hood the result will be either an outright ban on fees, with LLs taking the hit, but ultimately an increase in rent. Or fixed fees, whereby the profit element is removed.


to use one of my examples - if apple decide that carphone warehouse will be their sole retailer in the UK, then you must use them if you want an iphone, but you don't need an iphone.


I suspect if they priced it as: £400 for the phone + £400 for us to sell it to you, people would complain, but the figure is just £800

Pixie5740

I think you're comparing apples with oranges (boom boom).

No one needs an iPhone. As the consumer in your scenario I can choose to buy a phone from a different manufacturer or perhaps a second hand iPhone. Actually your scenario isn't that different from when the iPhone first came to the UK when the iPhone was sold exclusively through O2. If you didn't want to use O2 as your network carrier then you couldn't have an iPhone.

Housing on the other hand is a need. Tenants could be restricted by budget, type of property, location (particularly school catchment areas) so are left with little choice especially if the vast majority of rental properties are let via an agent and the agents are all charging similar fees. Time is also (usually) of the essence for tenants when it comes to finding a new home. It's not like someone buying a home who can spend months if not years pouring over property !!!!!! before buying somewhere.

Shelter Scotland carried out detailed research on the impact of rents when letting agent fees were banned in Scotland in 2012. It found that landlords in Scotland were no more likely to have increased rents after the ban came into force than landlords elsewhere in the UK.

Guest101

Pixie5740 wrote: »

I think you're comparing apples with oranges (boom boom). -

No one needs an iPhone. As the consumer in your scenario I can choose to buy a phone from a different manufacturer or perhaps a second hand iPhone. Actually your scenario isn't that different from when the iPhone first came to the UK when the iPhone was sold exclusively through O2. If you didn't want to use O2 as your network carrier then you couldn't have an iPhone. - Very true, which is why I used it.

Housing on the other hand is a need. - agreed. Tenants could be restricted by budget, type of property, location (particularly school catchment areas) so are left with little choice especially if the vast majority of rental properties are let via an agent and the agents are all charging similar fees. - I agree, but there is still choice. As you posted some LLs advertise outside of agencies, whether it's via a marketing only service, or via gumtree type adverts. Time is also (usually) of the essence for tenants when it comes to finding a new home. It's not like someone buying a home who can spend months if not years pouring over property !!!!!! before buying somewhere. - Kind of, most people will have at least 2 months. Lodgers excluded of course.

Shelter Scotland carried out detailed research on the impact of rents when letting agent fees were banned in Scotland in 2012. It found that landlords in Scotland were no more likely to have increased rents after the ban came into force than landlords elsewhere in the UK.

True, I saw that in another post. I suspect that the government will go with my second version, where fees are fixed.


the real problem in all this is s.21 notices. Paying a one off fee for a property, whilst unpalatable, is typical of many countries. But the fact that is effectively forced upon people by landlords (and agents) is the problem.


I think we're perhaps approaching the same problem from two equally valid angles.


To me it's no different than paying for anything else that I want - IE if I want to move I accept there is a cost there.


Whereas you're approaching it from (the equally true point) that people are forced to move and this is an additional cost


- though do correct me if I've misunderstood