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 .

One agent here wants £800 fees plus 1.5 month's rent as deposit plus first month's rent upfront. That comes to £3800 and that's for a 2 bed house. It is daylight robbery imhv.

Also, the landlord is the letting agents client so they should be paying.

It depends on the agent, often the LL is paying too. The agency I work for charges the majority of the fee to the LL and a small (by comparison) fee to the T. The idea of requiring the T to pay a fee for referencing and the agreement is to avoid them pulling out at the 11th hour after all of the work has been done - which is really common.

I agree that renewal fees shouldn't be charged. We don't charge them, the tenancy goes periodic after the fixed term (unless the T requests otherwise).

I agree that it is expensive to rent, but in the defence of the less scrupulous agents, lettings take a lot of time and can often be loss leaders, despite the fees seeming expensive.

The trouble is there is so much difference from agent to agent and greedy agents give the good ones a bad reputation. It's the same with deposits, the majority of tenants will be excellent and a months' deposit is refunded without dispute. Unfortunately there are others that leave properties in such poor condition that 1 months' rent doesn't touch the sides.

We base our fees on a percentage of the rent, which in theory should make the fees appropriate whether you are renting a flat for £500 pcm or a large house for £3,000 pcm.

Good news! But would like to say that LL's do pay the agents a fee as well - usually almost a months rent for finding the tenant and about 20%+ of the rent if the agent manages the property. Some LL's have no idea that the agent is charging the tenants an admin fee and refrencing charges , renewal charges of £150, 10% rent hike each year etc.

Lat time I rented I asked the agent for a breakdown of costs up front but on the final invoice I was charged an "admin fee" of £425 as well as the outrageous charge for referencing. I was also a LL and managed my own flat and knew the referncing only cost about £25 not the £220 I was charged. The owner of the house had no idea that I was being charged all these fees when I spoke to her about it.

It's not a week rent as deposit

It's a week rent as holding deposit

Letting agents often charge prospective tenants £500+ just to apply for a property and if they aren't successful they don't get it back. It's a racket.

I'm a tenant and think that 1 month equivalent to rent is fine and fair for a deposit.

My renewal was £132 and now they are asking for £458 to terminate early . When does this come in?

Oh yes I missed our admin fee of £850. That's a lot of admin for that price

If the government lasts long enough then it is probably the only really good measure in the Queen's Speech.

If the government lasts long enough then it is probably the only really good measure in the Queen's Speech.

Oh, yeah. Sure. Because I mean this:

The National Living Wage will be increased

Is really truly awful.

And this:

My government will reform mental health legislation and ensure that mental health is prioritised in the National Health Service in England.

Yeah, who cares about the mentally ill, eh? Why bother with them, right?

Not to mention the many other good points made.

Fuck. Did you even read the Queen's Speech?!

I owned a rental property (was unwilling landlord, in negative equity etc) and used a letting agent to rent it out for a bit. They charged about 6 weeks' rent to my tenants for an admin fee! I think it's totally out of order - they took 10% of the rent each month and I think that's more than enough for the very little they had to do to find and vet tenants. You're right Wormulonian, I had no idea of the charges the agent was making.

Before buying my first property about 9 yrs ago, I rented for a few years and was never charged any kind of admin fee. 1 month deposit is fine I think; the landlord needs a bit of a safety net and that's different to spurious 'admin fees'.

Letmesleep since when is a rolling tenancy no longer allowed?

So happy about this, no evidence that rent will increase based on scotland, you can only charge in rent what people will pay and I read that 50% already let themselves so those who rent using agents will have to be competitive as those not currently using agents won't need to put rents up to cover costs. Of course ARLA are doom and gloom about it, they have a vested interest in fees (fees which are totally disproportionate to the cost) but with any luck more LL's will be inclined to stop using agents and they'll go out of business, something else ARLA were concerned about. I'd love to know why it's the tenants responsibility to keep these people in jobs

Did rents rise significantly in Scotland when letting agents fees were done away with there?

I'm a landlord and pay the agency to find and reference tenants. It costs me about £600 a time. I can then claim that as a business expense so it makes no sense to have the tenant pay it.

Rents are dropping/stable where we are and it's a renters market to some extent so maybe that curbs agents ability to play both sides of the market.

I've just had to pay £72 to renew a tenancy. It would have been free to just let it go to a rolling tenancy but apparently those aren't done anymore... It's getting really expensive to rent. It would be great for the fees to be banned!

Rolling tenancies are perfectly legal, not in agents interests though as they can't charge a renewal fee!

Yes, if a letting agent told you that, I'd report them.

I think everyone knows estate agents don't do it for free, it's the level of fee and the fact they can take multiple fees and not return them if your unsuccessful

since when is a rolling tenancy no longer allowed?

Not allowed by the letting agents

Hooray!!! Last year I had to part with just shy of £3000 to move into a property with monthly rent of £800. With deposit, first months rent and fees. They also wanted to charge an additional £100 to move on a Saturday!

I can't see rents rising to cover it as these are charged by the letting agent and so it won't affect the landlords income at all.

Well the letting agents in this area no longer seem to offer them. We viewed quite a few places before moving and they all said that after the end of the tenancy we'd have to sign a new one (plus fees obviously) It's the first time we'd heard of that, we've always just gone to a rolling contract in previous rental properties.

I also think a lot of landlords will rent directly to tenants without agents. Loads of landlords choose agents because they think they will do thorough checks on tenants (they often don't) and that it protects them against non paying tenants (it doesn't) and in fact all it needs is some 'tenancy management' companies to spring up to deal with maintenance issues and inspections throughout the tenancy (at a lot less than 10% of the monthly rent) and landlords will realise they don't need letting agents.

The only time we rented and the agency asked for a fee to renew the contract and we said no, there no legal basis for this, it is a rolling contract. The agency backed down.

They have absolutely no right to insist on a renewal of the tenancy agreement. There's no legislation to back this up.

I have a property which I let out (old student flat). The reason why I prefer not to go to a rolling tenancy when a lease expires is that the notice period for tenants reverts to the statutory rent period (only one month). Under the standard terms of an AST the notice period tenants need to give is two months. I need to have enough notice to find replacement tenants.

The landlords' commission is the same under a rolling tenancy and a formal lease - they have this written into their terms of business.