Estate Agent - IS this normal Practice?

phill99

I run a property maintenance company. I have often been approached by a number of local residential letting agents. Their 'patter' always starts the same: "We're looking for highly skilled and professional tradesmen to undertake ongoing maintenance works on our portfolio, blah, blah, blah". So you say you're interested and then they hit you with "and we want 15% commission on any work we place with you".


I have refused all offers like this for a number of reasons:


1) I'm not willing to pay anyone commission for work.
2) They are basing the engagement of their tradesmen not on professionalism, experience reliability etc which is what you would expect them to do seeing as they are managing properties on behalf of their clients, but instead making decisions based solely on whoever will give them the best kick-back.
3) This kick back of x% is simply added to the bill to the landlord. So on a £100 job, the landlord is paying £115 to cover the agents position. At that level of job, £15 is neither here nor there, but on a £1000 job, that adds another £150 to the bill.


So it's simple. Landlords are not getting value for money, nor are they getting the best tradesman for the job. They are getting over charged for mediocre work.


So landlords, you need to be aware of this as you are being taken to the cleaners.

G_M

phill99 wrote: »

...
So landlords, you need to be aware of this as you are being taken to the cleaners.

All true.

But as I said in my post above, you are paying for convenience. As long as you are awareof that, and the convenience is worth paying for, then the arrangement works.

phill99

G_M wrote: »

All true.

But as I said in my post above, you are paying for convenience. As long as you are awareof that, and the convenience is worth paying for, then the arrangement works.

I don't disagree with that.
You may be paying for convenience, but you certainly aren't paying for quality of service, professionalism or after sales service as the only criteria that Letting Agents have for engaging tradesmen on a landlord clients behalf is who will pay their kick back.
So landlords are paying over the top for an inferior service.

diggingdude

I'm not sure they are not getting quality of service. That's a big generalisation. I think a lot of trades don't like these deals as they require a receipt

My mate is a plumber who does good work. He has a link with an estate agent. I have had truly independent people come out recently re kitchen who have been so bad I showed them the door.

It's always hit and miss with trades, then you have the dilemma of being tax friendly with them or not