Brilliant news that Letting Agents fees are going to be banned...

[weresquirrel]

and deposits limited to 1 week instead of 6! Yay, at last someone is giving a damn about poor tenants who have been treated like crap for years, both by the Government and by landlords and letting agents! Hooray! Well done the evil Tories .

Link?

Well if that's true that's excellent news..

thenegotiator.co.uk/letting-fees-ban-queens-speech/

Where did you read that? 1 week deposit is ridiculous (and I'm a tenant not a landlord)

Hmm, there is a worry it could lead to higher rents though.

But realistically, doesn't this just mean that rents will increase to cover the letting agent fees, and landlords will be extremely fussy about who they rent to and make it harder for people to get tenancies?

And what about the landlords whose properties are damaged and there is not enough deposit to cover it?

I doubt they will see the deposit cap through

all fees ? so when you renew your tenancy they are doing away with them trumped charges too?excellent news for those in private rented we were only in private rented two years thankfully [ we a are now in council] but those fees really pissed me off.

Of course the money will be made up somewhere else

Rents will have to rise to cover the risk of more than one week's worth of damage needing to be put right

That link said deposit cap of 1 month which is more reasonable.

Agree with the fees. Limiting the deposit to 1 week though is wrong. Landlords need some protection against people doing a bunk without paying the last month's rent. I'm not a LL by the way.

Why would it make landlords more fussy about who they let to? They already are!

It may make rents rise but I think it's more likely to shrink the letting industry and make it less profitable. That's fine by me. Online lettings should be more widespread with tenants completing checks online with automated credit check services etc. The industry is bloated and parasitic and can very easily stand to be cut back.

x-post, 1 month seems reasonable.

Unfortunately all it will mean is rents rise to cover the shortfall (I know a letting agent- he's already said they'll have to as letting agents won't do what they do for free and the home owners won't pay for it themselves. Not saying I agree with it just what he said (his biggest landlords have already confirmed this and put in place notes for rent
Rise to cover)

One month rent as deposit and letting fees charged to landlords only is fair. One week isn't enough deposit.

As a tenant I would rather pay slightly more rent (although rents are falling throughout the UK) every month than pay £500 to some letting agent for a few bits of photocopying. Also, the landlord is the letting agents client so they should be paying. People buying houses don't pay the sellers agent to buy the house, so why are tenants having to pay the fees that the landlord should be paying to the agent they took on.

So many landlords try and keep their tenants deposit for unscrupulous reasons and unfortunately for them it may now come back to bite them on the bum and if letting agents hadn't indulged in these unscrupulous costs to rip off tenants then this wouldn't need to happen but because the fees have become ridiculous it has put a spotlight on their practices.

All those complaining should be thankful you didn't get Corbyn in! He is in favour of a lot more policies to help tenants and discourage landlords.

Article says 1 week near the start, then quotes someone as saying 1 month later on.

The cost of a seller's agency fees are included in the sale price, so a buyer is indirectly paying the agent fees

Brilliant news. When will it be enacted??

The legally required independent deposit scheme has already largely clamped down on unscrupulous landlords withholding deposits for no reason

Metro online reports as follows:

Draft Tenants’ Fees Bill: to ban landlords and agents charging ‘letting fees’ or any payments as a condition of tenancy other than rent, a capped refundable security deposit at no more than one month’s rent, a capped refundable holding deposit at no more than one week’s rent and tenant default fees.

I can't see rents being able to rise to cover this. EU immigration has dropped of a cliff and rents are falling across the country.

Landlords can't be too picky as it's a renters market right now and most have mortgage payments to make.

One month deposit is good news.

Referencing fees are too high regardless of who is paying, especially when I complete all the details online for them.

Renewal fees make me mad, the amount of times EA insist we sign only for 6 months/year then insist on ridiculous fees to reprint a contract which I have to go through with a fine comb as they remove all the things we agreed previously annoys me. I appreciate it takes time and comes at a cost, but £90 & vat?!

Fortunately we are currently in a property we love and LL is great so have renewed for 2 years with no break clause to ensure our security.

Seeing as we contact our LL direct despite contract being "managed" by EA (as they never get anything done, or even bother contacting LL) I have no idea how they justify their "cut"

Now we've got to know LL we will be renewing direct next time

Unfortunately it's often "the few" that cause issues for the rest of us. We are reliable, good clean tenants who care for our house as if it were our own, and have yet to have a deposit retained/pay rent late/be asked to leave a property/cause damage, but I can understand (as difficult as it is to raise it) why many LL want the security of a large deposit to protect their property.

I read "advice" all too often online that tells tenants to withhold rent for all kinds of spurious reasons, including not paying the last months rent as it's "covered by the deposit" which is not on.
I do understand the frustrations of it though, when moving (often through no choice of your own-we've had to leave when a house was sold) you need to find fees, deposit, rent up front etc before previous deposit returned. With these being held in central schemes surely there could be a way to transfer a deposit from one property to another, even if it was dependent on a reliability rating for the tenants??

The one week figure refers to holding deposits not security deposits. This will end the practice of taking several holding deposits from tenants and keeping all the deposits of those who don't get the property.