Moving to new Rental

Phunky

Well my partner and I have been looking at houses for the past couple of months with the idea of buying but it just is not going to happen so we started to look at rentals again.

We have stumbled on a corker in Saltaire, West Yorkshire - its 3 bedrooms and very well looked after and only £505pcm and in tac band B which is great as we are moving from a 2 bed apartment in Bingley, W.Yorks which is costing us £570pcm and £130 a month in C.Tax!!!

Now the letting agent which is being used is Village Estates and a couple of friends have used them and stated that they where a bit of an "!!!!" to deal with doing stuff such as letting themselfs in to the property to take pictures (without consent!) and few other bits and bobs.

They are also looking at charging us £225 for a leasing fee which i am guessing is there fleece charge for a credit check?? and a £15 charge for "Bond Protection"

Now my main query is that they state they only do 6 month leases which would be no problem if they didn't charge a re-signing fee of £40-60 which i've been told they charge.

Can they do this? If i contacted the Land Lord directly after taking on the property requesting a longer lease contract on the first renewal would this likely cause me some trouble??!

keelyjrs

Sorry I can't offer you help but thought I'd bump you up. Hopefully someone will come along soon to answer your Q's. I'm pretty sure the letting themselves in and taking pics is illegal and if it did happen would land the company in serious trouble

tbs624

Phunky wrote: »

Now the letting agent which is being used is Village Estates and a couple of friends have used them and stated that they where a bit of an "!!!!" to deal with doing stuff such as letting themselfs in to the property to take pictures (without consent!) and few other bits and bobs.

I'd tend to avoid all LAs, but particularly ones who have a bit of a rep. for impromptu visits to the properties they manage. However, if you want to go ahead you can always draft a letter as soon as you are in, just setting out your own terms for any necessary access to the property by the LA.

Phunky wrote: »

They are also looking at charging us £225 for a leasing fee which i am guessing is there fleece charge for a credit check?? and a £15 charge for "Bond Protection"

It's outrageous to charge a Tenant to protect a deposit: there is very little effort involved in registering anyone's deposit. I think I'd ask them for a full breakdown of their charges, as a comprehensive credit check should only cost around £50. Presumably they will say that the rest of it is for "drawing up" the Tenancy Agmt, ie inserting a couple of dates/names into an existing computer-held file and printing it off..

Phunky wrote: »

.....they only do 6 month leases which would be no problem if they didn't charge a re-signing fee of £40-60 which i've been told they charge.

Can they do this? If i contacted the Land Lord directly after taking on the property requesting a longer lease contract on the first renewal would this likely cause me some trouble??!

Most LA/LLs will want to start off with 6 months until they have a better picture of the kind of tenant you are. There is nothing to stop you either asking to go onto a Periodic Agreement at the end of the Fixed Term ( 1 months notice from you, 2 months from LA/LL) or for a longer Fixed Term contract to be put in place.

If you've proved to be a reliable tenant you can always simply say " would love to stay on but am not prepared to pay those renewal charges" -they then have the choice of going with what you'd like to do or having to start all over gain, readvertising and re-letting the property. The LL would probably prefer to do things on your terms than risk a void period.


EDIT: see here to add your name to a petition set up by an MSE-er http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lettingfees/

kunekune

Quite a few people I work with have been negative about Village Estates as well. I tried to rent somewhere from them last summer but despite frequent phone calls, they never arranged a viewing and then I was told the house had been let ... it took nearly 2 months for someone to move in! I would not advise entering into a contract with an agent with a bad reputation.

I do think that rent you're paying is very high: we are paying £675 for one of the 4 bed newbuilds in the Argyll Court development and some of the even bigger 4 beds that face onto Whitley St have just been listed with Dacres for £695 ... I know that's more than you want to pay, but it's evidence of how much too much you are paying.

The agency we are with are Drumons in Skipton (not on RM but they have their own website), and they have been excellent - they sometimes have properties in Bingley and right now they have a nice semi in Riddlesden (fine if you don't have to worry about school zones): http://www.cravenproperty.co.uk/details_special.asp?ID=6119. I don't think the fees are very different, but there was nothing extra for the deposit protection and they were fine about giving us a 12 month AST. A friend has had good experiences with Quinns.

Phunky

kunekune wrote: »

I do think that rent you're paying is very high: we are paying £675 for one of the 4 bed newbuilds in the Argyll Court development and some of the even bigger 4 beds that face onto Whitley St have just been listed with Dacres for £695 ... I know that's more than you want to pay, but it's evidence of how much too much you are paying.

Currently we are in the Lock's development which is scaryly over priced! A 3 Bed Town house has just gone up for £270k!

This is ours apartment which is great its not an house and we should save about £120-140pcm moving to the one in Saltaire thanks to council tax and rent savings.

kunekune wrote: »

I don't think the fees are very different, but there was nothing extra for the deposit protection and they were fine about giving us a 12 month AST. A friend has had good experiences with Quinns.

We are currently with Quinns and they where great, had to bit the bullet and go with Village Estates as the other half fell in love with the property i've been with worse (Whitegates ) just have to hope that after 6/12 months we can get it changed to a private let!

btw looking at ours apartment would you think that tax band E is a bit high?? I've just had a letter from another person in this building that has a 2 bedroom that was band D but has now gone done to C after them complaining!