I think a lot of the hatred toward landlords is actually down to poor management by letting agents?

[BehindTheMiddleman]

I’m not denying that bad landlords exist, they absolutely do. But I increasingly wonder how much of the day-to-day frustration tenants experience is actually caused by letting agents acting as terrible middlemen.

Delayed repairs, poor communication, misinformation, unnecessary hostility - tenants often only ever deal with the agent, not the landlord. And yet the landlord gets all the blame. I’ve seen situations where landlords weren’t even informed about issues or were told things had been handled when they hadn’t.

AIBU to think that letting agents quietly cause a lot of the problems, while landlords take the reputational hit?

Good landlords use good agents who are attentive to the tenants' needs. Over half my property income goes on the agents (15% commission plus VAT) and their repairs and maintenance, professional services and replacement furniture etc... Bad landlords use bad agents, who do very little. It's the landlords.

But wouldn't letting agents take instructions from landlords not tenants, tenants reports repair needed letting agents would need permission from landlord to spend the landlords money?

There are decent landlords and tenants but not always same with letting agents, the 3 would need to 'meet' to make it all work effectively

I used to have fantastic agent, then they sold up, and were taken over by one of the bigger companies, and they are absolutely awful. I'm swapping to a different agent, but I've rented long enough to have low expectations of the only other alternative in my town.

Having been on both sides of it, a good agent is fantastic, but most aren't. This is why my tenants have my contact details, so they can ask me directly when they don't get any joy from the agent (which happens much more often than it should, and often over stupid things, where it's just the agent being lazy/not reading what I or the tenant has actually asked/replied)

This.
Before we purchased our house, we had experience of an amazing landlord/agent and an absolutely abhorrent landlady.

Our letting agent is not bad but I hate that all correspondence has to be funnelled through them to the landlord.

The landlord is SUPER annoying and pushes back on most things we raose and it P's me off!

Exactly this. The agents get a bad rap but they can only instruct repairs after the landlords give their approval in non emergency situations. They are likely shielding the tenant from how rubbish the LL is!

Landlords are responsible, surely, to choose a good agent, or manage the property themselves.

Our estate agent has lied to us repeatedly, and what makes it worse is that they keep hiding behind “the landlord” — except we actually know the landlord personally (he’s my husband’s cousin). The agent doesn’t know that we know him, and it’s become a bit of a running joke.

Examples:

• We regularly get emails saying “the landlord was not happy” that we weren’t in for a gas inspection. When we mentioned it to the landlord directly, he laughed and said it was absolutely fine. Estate agent will have to sort re inspection.
• When we moved in, the landlord paid the agent for a deep clean. No deep clean was done at all — the house was still being painted right up until the day before we moved in. My mum and I ended up deep-cleaning the bathrooms ourselves.
• We were told “the landlord wasn’t happy” that the rent was paid a day late. Again, when spoken to directly, the landlord said he genuinely didn’t mind. Bank holiday issue with payment.
• Most recently, the agent claimed “the landlord is unhappy” that we haven’t cut the hedges — which is simply not true.

Every time, when we speak to the landlord himself, he’s relaxed and unaware of any issue. It feels like the agent uses “the landlord isn’t happy” as a generic threat or pressure tactic, when it’s completely made up

Landlords hire and pay the letting agents, if they are not doing the job themselves or making sure the letting agents do a good job then they are absolutely at fault.

I don't like landlords because they buy up the housing stock driving up prices for everyone and get other people to pay their mortgages so they end up with free houses.

That makes no sense free houses?

I had leaks from the ceiling, rising damp that ruined my own belongings, and no central heating as there was a radiator with a hole in, so the system didn't keep pressure.
The chap checking my boiler reported it, and I reported it all so many times to the letting agency. They sent out a man to look at the radiator with the hole.... he measured it up and said I needed a new one. Nothing happened. The landlord would not clear any repairs.

We rented for 20+ years before finally buying a place, and our one truly terrible experience was definitely down to the agents. The owners/landlords lived in Australia, so were completely dependent on the agents to manage the place properly, and the agents were determined to ignore all underlying issues and undertake any maintenance in the cheapest and most slapdash way possible. I actually felt quite sorry for the owners (who I never met or had any contact with) because as tenants we could just move out (we did) whereas they probably had no idea that the agents were depreciating the value of their asset by pretending the pervasive damp problem didn’t exist and replacing all the quality fittings with the shoddiest crap.

Well it doesn't go to the agents, does it. It goes towards fees for them to manage your property and 30% on property maintenance

Landlords employ an agent because the housing law has now become so complex that they either dont want to bother following it or they live elsewhere. They imagine that the agent will handle all the legal aspects of the letting. The problem is that agents can be completely incompetent and fail to comply with the law. Its the kind of occupation which people go into when they have neither qualifications or skills for anything else.

Letting Agents are undoubtedly up there with Solicitors as the most do bare minimum but charge extra for anything and everything frauds.

No it’s to do with landlording being a fundamental driver of inequality, being fundamentally a creator of division into haves and have nots, and being fundamentally a relationship of exploitation.

Landlords create nothing and build nothing, they solely use pre existing wealth to ensure their own continued wealth and status by preventing anyone else from being able to live on the results of their own work.

It is very much akin to usury which was banned from many pre-modern societies due to its socially corrosive nature. It can also be considered as a pre condition for slavery, or the creation at least of powerless peasantry.

The foundation of freedom is that you must be able to enjoy the fruits of your own labour, and freedom is a call that has echoed across the north of Eurasia - and North America, it’s why people went there - for millennia. You are not going to conveniently make everyone forget that no matter how much propaganda is thrown out and how many lies are promulgated.

You might want to consider the roots of the whole ridiculous notion of owning land - owning the planet- that certain elites within certain groups of ape-descendants have been empowered to create within conquered and unsettled populations (ie England post Conquest).

It probably varies. When we rented, we had a completely overbearing, overstepping landlady, but the people from the actual agency were lovely.

She decided to sell up, and the sales agent and I actually bonded over how awful she was!

The landlord employs the letting agent so, yes, they are ultimately responsible to ensure the letting agents is meeting the standards they expect.

Many landlords just want to pay minimum fees for max profit, if they don’t care if letting agents are doing their job then the negativity towards landlords is justified.

Hmm
My daughter had a few landlords when she was at uni. One was reasonably ok in terms of repairs.
They all tried to take the deposit, even though the houses were all left in much better condition than they were received.
No, I don’t think it is the agents fault

I am a landlord, I use an agency to carry out inventory, boiler/electrical checks and rent collection. I do all the viewings, repairs or maintenance. Had a nightmare tenant several years back despite glowing references so insisted on meeting any potential tenants after that. I can also carry out any repairs within hours. I get irritated by the constant emails from agents telling me to increase the rate at every opportunity but I now have an excellent tenant so happy to keep them on the original agreed rent.

Basically anyone can/could set up as a letting/estate agent

There are no requitements to be qualified or a fit and proper person.

Ireland is different and they have to be registered, qualified etc

Why cant we do the same here

Oooh, I dunno. I had the misfortune some years ago to rent from an absolute witch. The letting agent was so frustrated with her, he said she was the worst landlord he'd ever had to deal with. She just refused to let them do anything properly. She wasn't a professional landlord though, she was just renting out her old flat for some easy cash after getting married and having a baby. The agency was a respectable outfit, but there was no way of them knowing when they took on her property that she was going to be so awkward.
My parents are landlords, they keep their place in excellent condition and have a really good relationship with their tenants and the neighbours - they don't even use an agent as it's quicker to sort any problems directly than wait for it to go via a 3rd party, and they want to be sure of the quality of any work done.