Landlords help required!

unknown_786

Hi there,

I have recently started helping my dad with a flat we rent out. This question is for all the landlords out there. Currently my dad pays 10% management fees each month to an estate agents. VAT is then put on top of this 10%. SO from £775 rent, £77.50 is paid to the estate agent, but then a further 13.56 is also paid to them as VAT. So out of a toal of £775, we lost £91.06 each month.

The problem we face is we need the estate agent to find tenants but they do nothing each month. If there is a problem witht he property the tenants call the estate agents, who simply call us and we go and sort out the problem. So all they do each month is take the rent from the tenants, take a chunk out of it, and send it to us!

Does anyone know a way around this or even if one can just give the property to the estate agent just to find tenants, and then take over the management.

Apologies if anything I have asked is stupid, but I just want to save my dad some money!

Thanking you in advance,

Unknown

Dutchgirl_2

I was on the other side as a tenant for 2 years. I think that I would have preferred to deal directly with a landlord rather than going through an estate agent as a tenant. My first estate agent was OK about property management, although I felt that they charged accordingly. The first landlord was an institutional investor that could afford to pay (through our rent payments, of course) for a premium property management service. The second estate agent (for the second year) was simply appalling, from what they charged for search fees - I found out that the boss of the branch himself basically made the phonecalls for references, but they still charged £200 for all this. I found out that they usually also called the landlady about all the repairs and she wasn't very willing to do these repairs, because she also felt she had paid a large management fee for this. Some of the problems of the flat were rather serious (and were leading to structural problems), but hadn't been solved despite regular complaints and requests from our part. I think the EA was to blame for this situation.

As I said, I think a lot of estate agents provide poor service for tenants and landlords, but the search for tenants can probably be hard depending on the area. I used to live in an expensive university city, where finding a new tenant would have been no problem. The landlady decided to use an EA because she is a bit older and lived far away. From the tenant's perspective, if you decide to skip the EA, I would suggest compiling a clear rental contract, a clear indication that the deposit will be in a secure account and the exact conditions under which the deposit will be returned. I finally managed to buy a house a month ago and I'm very pleased that I won't have to endure "inspections" by the EA every 2 months and their general incompetence anymore, at least now I'm responsible myself.

kido_2

dump the agency and do the work for yourself agencies are a rip off

theGrinch

yes you can instruct this or any agent to find the tenants or even find them yourself with an ad in local paper or even loot.

GDB2222

Just check what the contractual terms are with the agent.