Renting - High Inventory fee!

tbs624

rjocal wrote: »

How (if ever) are these fees enforced? They seem to be anti-competitive at best and corrupt at worst... no better than a "bung" in other shady business circles.
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People pay because they can't get the flat/house that they want without doing so, so there doesn't need to be any other enforcement unfortunately. LLs wanting to have their property dealt with by someone else rarely seem to bother about what charges the LA is levying on the Tenant, except where it may mean that the LL has a personally expensive void period for their property, and say a Tenant refuses to cough up for fees again at renewals time.

All Agents seem to charge these fees, so it is almost like a cartel. :(The only option is to find a LL who sorts his own property rentals out.

rjocal

Actually, here's a more specific question. The Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 makes it an offence...

"If any agent corruptly accepts or obtains, or agrees to accept or attempts to obtain, from any person, for himself or for any other person, any gift or consideration as an inducement or reward for doing or forbearing to do, or for having after the passing of this Act done or forborne to do, any act in relation to his principal’s affairs or business, or for showing or forbearing to show favour or disfavour to any person in relation to his principal’s affairs or business..."

How does that not fit the description of a letting agent requesting (in fact demanding) money from a prospective tenant in order to conclude a contract with the Landlord (the "principal")? The LA is choosing the tenant based on the payment (or not) of the "fee" - rather than according to the best interests of the Landlord, as they are required to.

I know a little knowledge is a dangerous thing - hopefully somebody with a little more can educate me! Thanks.

lil_me

We paid just under £500 in fees to the LA when we moved into the house we're in now.

tbs624

The LAs will claim that the "admin fee" is to cover the work involved in checking your credit status, making phone calls for references from banks, employers, previous LLs etc plus the-ahem- expensive labour costs involved in them form filling or drawing that ever so personalised contract up, plus the time they spent looking for the keys to the property in their offices, etc, etc.....;)

rjocal

Exactly my point: all work done for the landlord's benefit.
I know I'm creditworthy - I don't need a Letting Agent to check and tell me so
So what am I paying them - nothing but a bribe to secure the let!

chappers

Indeed and then they charge the landlord 10% of the rent for [STRIKE]mis[/STRIKE]managing the property.

BlueCat_2

I'm just about to move into a rented place and the lettings agent is charging me £42 application fee, and then another £92 administration/inventory fee PLUS, as far as i can make out, a further £92 fee for my guarantor (as I'll be on housing benefit). I also saw some paperwork on the agent's desk saying that the rent was £595 when actually they're charging me £795 ...so presumably £200 of my rent each month goes direct to the agent. Disgraceful ...

Would there be any point/is it at all ethical for me to write to the owners of the house (who are moving overseas) and offer to pay them the full rent in exchange for me organising any repairs etc with their consent? or would that be completely stupid, both for them and me?

Bungarm2001

One day, if I live long enough, these LA's will get their comuppances...:mad: :mad:

We have had LA's from hell over the years (better point out here that we are LL'S) Most tenants don't know this, but we too have been charged all the above fees i.e. credit check fees, inventory fees plus so-called one-off 'finders' fee which invariably was an enormous (to us) amount of money. ON TOP of that, we pay anything up to 15% every month of the rent collected on our behalf. Easy money for them when all it is is going from one bank account to another by direct debit.

The finders fees were supposed to pay for advertising, interviewing prospective tenants etc etc Since our properties hardly ever needed advertising (they let by word of mouth mainly) we questioned the need for these extortionate charges and promptly got blacklisted by one prominent LA as trouble makers.

Other LA's we signed up with charged us the finders fee at every new contract, even when it was just a renewal contract with the same tenant. ALL they had to do in that case was to get us and the tenant to sign an exact copy of the previous contract. Cost to us? Anything up to or around 600 quid. Real cost?? About £1.40p in paper, ink and envelopes plus a couple of stamps.

At some point, we decided to go it alone. MUCH better because now we have not only cut off the opportunity for the LA's to rip us off, but stopped the pontential for them ripping off our tenants too.

It'll be a great day when some sort of legislation stops these b*ggers and forces them to be more transparent with their charges. We'll ALL be happy then...LL's and tenants alike.

clutton_2

we will always need LAs as long as some LLs dont want to manage their own properties

do tenants check if LAs they go to are members of a professional body ARLA for example

PasturesNew

clutton wrote: »

do tenants check if LAs they go to are members of a professional body ARLA for example

I doubt it. I didn't.
I randomly surfed the internet desperately looking for something that I was prepared to afford and was in an area I was OK with, then there's the long waiting time to actually view (some agents can't even show you round for another week). And all against a backdrop of "need something now!"

However, I was "lucky". I paid £176 inc VAT for the whole up front thing. No inventory/no inventory charge. LL did the "tenant finding" service only. LL is a dream (amateur but wants to do the right thing and be fair, goes out of his way to instantly fix anything). After 6 months didn't even have to go into another AST, iLL asked if I wanted to and I said I wanted a periodic tenancy and explained it. He was happy as he didn't have to do anything/get agents involved. I was happy as I don't like feeling particularly tied, and there were no further fees to pay, although I'll probably still be here another 6 months and more.

Now, although I'd like to move (a sunnier spot would make life seem cheerier), I won't because god only knows what the next LL might be like and I'd have to pay those fees again and I'd be tied in for 6 months again. Better the devil you know.