Letting Agency Fees

charlypalmer

Hi,

Wondering if anyone can help. I have recently moved and found my new flat through a letting agent. My partner and I were charged £150 for a reference check and a further £60 for drawing up the contract. I wasn't happy but accepted it.

The company that did the reference check have a website and I looked out of curiosity only to discover the actual cost of the check came to £100. Are they really allowed to put a 50% mark-up on for emailing the reference agency a form that I completed myself???

Cheers.

MadSebW

Most agencies charge the same or even more. The agency we rented with last year now charge in total £300 for all the checks etc. It's alot of money but i doubt you can change that.

topletters

Hi

I used to work in a job where I dealt with letting agents on a daily basis on behalf of clients. The unfortunate fact is they get away with charging ridiculous sums for tasks such as 'administration' they barely have to do, and they get away with it. There is very little legally to stop them charging the sums they do.

The only legal redress you might have, if any, is something called the Unfair Terms in Contracts Regulations 1999, which you might be able to use in a case like this. Speak to your local trading standards and the housing advice team at your local authority to see if they can help in any way. You could perhaps query it with the letting agent with regard to what you found on that website. But the sad fact is that because it is a sellers market, lettings agents don't tend to budge very readily.

Regards
Mark
topletters

mystic_trev

topletters wrote: »

Hi

I used to work in a job where I dealt with letting agents on a daily basis on behalf of clients. The unfortunate fact is they get away with charging ridiculous sums for tasks such as 'administration' they barely have to do, and they get away with it. There is very little legally to stop them charging the sums they do.

Yes - I'm a Landlord and have also been shafted by their charges! They're a load of bloody crooks which is one (amongst other) reasons I'm jumping from the good ship BTL !!!!!!