Losing letting agent but keeping tenant

tykemum

Hi,

Hoping for some help/guidance.  

We currently rent out a property via a letting agent and have done for almost 10 years.  We have a very settled tenant who we deal with directly for maintenance issues, the letting agent does annual checks, lease renewal and gas certificate. Our fixed period is up on the mortgage and we want to avoid big increases on the rent so will absorb some of the costs but are also considering ditching the letting agent, currently they take 14% of the rent + VAT. However, we were told when we first let the property out that we couldn't take the tenant from the letting agent and if we did we would be fined? My husband has asked for a copy of our contract (I know we should have this but it's got lost somewhere along the way).  I've had a search through the forum and the consensus seems to be the contract is between the LL and the tenant so maybe the Letting Agent was trying it on??

Does anyone know if the letting agent can fine us or the tenant if we continue the lease arrangement without their involvement?

Thanks in advance.

propertyrental

You need to read the contract between yourself and the letting agent. The AST with the tenant is irrelevant.

See also the stickie:

Post 9: Letting agents: how should a landlord select or sack?

saajan_12

The AST contract is between the LL and tenant. 
However there's also a contract between LL and LA for tenant finding, annual checks, rent collection, etc in return for 14.5% - which may be tied to the length of the tenancy with the tenant they found. 

That is the contract you need to dig out. 

quotememiserable

I've done this exact thing. The tenant had long since gone onto a rolling contract, so was outside the terms of my LA contract. I just gave them 3 months notice to quit, and put in place a new AST with the tennant.
I've also saved on gas and electric checks by arranging them through Openrent, as it turns out the LA's charges were well over market rates.