To be fuming at this letting agency?

[x2boys]

We have been renting privately for two years through a letting agency every six months we have to pay£125 to renew our contract and are told vaguely its admin fees! That's by the by though on Tuesday we were offered a council house we viewed it and accepted it on Wednesday ,so yesterday I gave my notice and asked for a reference just that we are not in rent arrears etc. I was told that the council would have to request one from there admin team I stressed the importance of the urgency of it and then gave the council the number to phone this morning the man from the council phoned me to say that the letting agency wouldn't provide a reference until I paid a £25 fee ( I wasn't told this yesterday!) And that they couldn't provide the reference today, so after telling them if I lost the house due to their incompetence I would complain to the local paper and on every social net work site they said they would give a. Verbal severance today followed by a written one !

Reference not severance*

Sounds about par for the course. My experience of letting agents has always been that they'll try and bleed as much money out of you as possible.

Brace yourself for check out fees next.

Completely unreasonable of them to have not told you about the £25 let alone charging it in the first place.

Go to your local MP about this and your local paper.

I hope you get offered something else from the Council soon OP

Yep sounds about right. Watch out for the money deducted off your deposit for "cleaning", too.

There's no such thing as "verbal severance" and any "written severance" must be on the right form, referring to the right legislation and using very specific dates.

They sound like twats.

Contact the council and explain. You may be able to show evidence of regular payments with your bank statements. Failing that, write directly to the LL and ignore the agency altogether.

And don't pay them a penny.

Oh, ignore most of what I said. I thought by "severance" you meant notice. Sorry.

The rest stands, though.

this is exactly why i refused to use an agent to let my house, I am sure it was agents ganging up on me on that thread telling me i was the kind of person that got landlords a bad name.

Gobshites.

Congratulations on the new house and putting letting agencies and all of their associated made up charges behind you for a very long time.

I have already mentally said goodbye to my deposit as I,m sure they will find something but the whole thing has just annoyed me I paid this months rent yesterday and providing we get the reference we get the keys today so they can technically have the house back next week .

well dont give it back early - take your time moving, if they are charging you - let them have the keys back as late as possible

But you've signed up for 6 months though. Will you have to complete the 6 months?

No fortunately the landlord didn't sign his bit so they moved us onto a rolling contract a couple of months ago!

I'm not sure about the rest of the issues but I'm a bit at the £125 every 6 months to renew your contract! When DH and I used to rent we did so on a fixed 6 month contract that then, if we wanted to stay longer, automatically changed to a rolling contract requiring 1 month notice from either party to terminate it. Having to pay £125 twice a year for the privilege of staying in your home sounds absolutely outrageous!

Tell me about it pretty penguin I wanted a rolling contract because I was hoping to get offered a council property but when I asked they said they couldn't do it but when the landlord didn't sign his bit they suddenly could ! I.m sure they have scammed us but I,m knew to renting through an agency.

It costs the landlord too though. It's cheaper for us to move to a rolling contract, than it is to renew for 6 months. But then we don't guarantee at least another 6 months rent.

We move on to a rolling contract after the initial 6 months anyway. It's less hassle for all concerned, as well as cheaper.

PrettyPenguin unfortunately a lot of agents these days try to charge a fee for going onto a rolling contract (yes, even though they do nothing, it is just what happens - or serve a s.21 notice with their letter offering renewal for a fee. Sadly, the law has no teeth to protect tenants from these rip-off merchants.

OP you shouldn't need to give up on your deposit without good cause. These days they can't just hold on to the deposit without evidence to justify it. The deposit is legally yours and they cant deduct without your agreement. If you cant reach a reasonable agreement tell them you want to take it to the deposit resolution service. They have to provide all of the necessary information and hard evidence for any deductions they want to make. The adjudicators will have to be convinced by the evidence before they will allow the deductions.

Unfortunately renewals fees are not unusual but there is talk of new legislation that may make that more difficulty for agents to justify

Enjoy your new home and don't let the agent rip off your deposit!

meercat23 is right about the deposit. You shouldn't lose it. (Unless you have done some damage)

It is normal to pay checkout fees though --> the cost of the inventory/inspection. the work involved when the LL queries it etc

Also normal to pay for a professional clean on leaving. Clean when you go in, clean when you leave.

£25 for a reference a bit steep but agency is a business and someone has to do that work, (1 hour?) - and be legally responsible for any comeback.

Refusal to do it and lack of urgency unacceptable though. Council should have accepted verbal reference with promise of written ref to follow.

Similar happened to me. Bastards did not say the reference cost £25. So I wanted and waited for the reference along with the new agents. Then they say: you didn't pay for the reference. You didn't tell me there was a fee!!!

Do bot give up on your deposit. Question everything and if unreasonable which it will be take them to the TPS! It's easy to fill the forms.
Last time the agent tried to deduct £250. I ask what for. He said: miscellaneous. I said: you need to list every item with a cost next to it. The only item that was missing was an already broken sieve that I chucked but not replaced. What, 5 quid at most? I was there at the check out - nothing else was missing. twat.

Thankfully they did the verbal reference so I got my house its just the fees for everything that I find irritating I didn't know about check out fees though thanks for warning me.

I take issue with some of that engeika.

Professional clean on move out is only normal if the property was professionally cleaned before you moved in. You've no legal obligation to leave the property in a better condition of cleanliness than you found it.

A reference takes 5 mins, usually on a pro forma. All they normally say is X lived in the property for Y number of years and they always paid the rent on time. There's no legal comeback on you if the person's new landlord has any problems in the future. It is not £25 worth of work.

Check out is usually paid by landlord. Tenant pays check in. That's the usual way it's split.