Is my estate agent allowed to do this?

[kettleoffish]

We moved in 4 months ago on a 6 month lease. Soon after moving in, we were sent a list of charges. Well I was surprised at first at what I read. In all my 12 years of renting with different agents around the country from moving about quite often, I've never met an agent who charges us £60 for extending the lease for another 6 months, or charging £75 for extending the lease to a 1-month running lease after our 6 mth lease is up.

The house has problems. The lounge window had a 2 inch crack on the bottom left corner which was never fixed. The agent had a builder come in to look but then after he went away, we never heard from him again. Now the crack has grown to a 8 inch crack.

And now, this is another first for me as well, but the agent sent us a letter at the beginning of October to ask us to tell them "soon as possible" if we are moving out of the house or not. Well I do want to move as this home is too small for us but we took it at first because it was the only house for rent in the area we wanted at first. But since letting agents often want people to move in within a month after putting down a deposit, we are still in the process of viewing new homes but didn't think we should pledge to move in any properties yet until November. So I did not respond to the current agent's request to speak to them yet.

This morning, a lady from the agent's office came knocking on the door. She came to do an inspection. She claims they have sent a letter to us earlier telling us they were coming to do an inspection. Well no they didn't, plus they didn't call either, so we were completely unawares of this. This is the school holidays and the house is a bit of a tip. At first I wanted to turn her away as this to me is an unannounced inspection, but my "soft" husband kept winking at me to let her in and she had a really argumentative tone to her voice and sounded very pushy but basically she "wanted" us to go to their office afterwards to speak to her boss to let them know whether we are moving or not.

I have never met an estate agent like this. I felt like arguing with her about the surprise inspection but because of my husband's obvious reluctance to put up any resistance, I let her be.

I feel like all this agent has done is not standard estate agent practice. Or is it?

I know I have to write to them. Seems strange to do so because their office is just 10 mins walk away.

Yes, writing. It feels strange to be extra polite to people who are trying to screw you, but it's a deadly sort of politeness, more an utter lack of intimacy or cordiality.

but if ll has ever lived in the property they may have registered it as that address or their previous one so op is no further forward.

But it's £3 and an instant download rather than a potential wrangle with the crap agent.

Thank goodness things are regulated here in Scotland and such fees are illegal. I hope you get things sorted OP.

there is only the option to pay for download of "title plan", "title register" or "flood risk indicator result" on the land registry. No such thing listed as "title deed" on it. Which one should I use?

Cavkc you said your agent also serves an s21 before the tenancy is up, even though they don't enforce it. Makes me wonder how many agents in England are doing this same. And why do they not get in trouble for that.

if you've had an S21, surely you are entitled to walk out on that day with no additional notice, if it suits you?

Its the reference DH is worried about. That's what's stopping him from doing that. And he can be very rebellious if he wants to. I don't think he really cares as long as he ends up losing the least money. He is worried we will get a bad ref and that would mean we need yo pay a higher than normal deposit for the next house, or have to find a guarantor which is a pain as we don't have family in this country and don't want to trouble friends about this.

he's basically decided that he may end up even worse off financially if he decides to challenge the agents. he thinks the termination fee is nothing compared to having to pay a higher deposit for a bad ref. before we moved into our previous property, we had a bad ref from a bad landlord. we ended up paying 800 deposit for a flat that costs 520 in rent.

Well if we manage to find a new place within the next 2 to 3 weeks, maybe we won't have to worry about a bad ref as we would be able to give one month's notice to leave at the end of our tenancy... and refuse to pay fees if it came to that. By then the new agent would have gotten a positive ref from current agent (because we haven't yet got to the point of getting chased for a termination fee).

But then with a sly agent I suppose they could chase us for termination fees along with ref fees even IF we find a house so soon. The current agent could say oh... if you don't pay up then we won't give a ref. Or somethting like that. I'm guessing.

So yeah I think we may just have to suck it up somehow if we don't want a bad ref? I don't know. It sucks to be renting these days but we have no choice. And after looking at other letting agents' policies in the areas we are moving to, it seems that the practice of charging fees for tenancy renewal, refs, etc. Is pretty widespread. If the agencies are not getting in trouble doing that, I don't know if we are really going to come out winning if we challenge it. The next agent may probably sting us with charges and then it happens again... I don't know. I do despair sometimes. I'm already so busy with other things, I really don't have that much time to deal with this. I need to know it's worth our while. We're not doing that well financially at the mo and I know why DH doesn't want a bad ref and be asked to pay a higher deposit for the next place because of it.

Just found this and this is "advice" from an agent to a landlord to serve s21 notices to sort of safeguard themselves against tenants who don't want to leave at the end of 6 months (but who don't pay rent too, I guess?)

www.visum.co.uk/landlord-guide/serving-section21-at-move-in.aspx

Is this a common thing now?

That website even has a section at the top left titled "My Accounts", where if you click, a drop-down menu appears and one of the options on the menu is "My Evictions", to aid LLs using the site to keep track of all the s21s they have served. If one agent online openly advises LLs, no they encourage LLs, to do this, then what's to say other agents don't?

I am just surprised how much things have changed since we last signed the tenancy agreement with our previous landlord 7 years ago. Back then, I've never encountered this.

So what's to stop many agents and LLs from charging renewal fees nowadays, if this is what many of them do - serve s21s early on and force tenants to leave at end of 6 months or pay to renew?

Hi OP - it's title register that you'd need from the LR. Title plan is the map that shows the extent of the property and its boundaries. Flood risk indicator is just that and not relevant to your query.

I'm guessing OP that there has been a huge increase in rentals rather than sales and EAs are clawing back lost revenue by charging tenants for sneezing in the houses and flats they rent.

Doesn't sit well with me at all. If you write to them - email is fine, but sending a letter Special Delivery or Recorded (takes longer) with give you proof of delivery - and pull them up on their many shortcomings I think they will back down.

Don't worry about the reference now - finding somewhere else is the priority. You have the reference from and contact details of the LL you rented from for many years. The reference worry is a red herring really.

Let the current LL know how the agent has behaved and see what the response is.

Looking at the numbers you gave for your "deposit after the bad reference",

we ended up paying 800 deposit for a flat that costs 520 in rent.

Normal deposit these days is six weeks' rent, which is 520/30= 17.33 daily rent, or £121.33 weekly rent. Six weeks' rent would therefore have been a deposit of £728, so they held £72 extra.

Now, you could look at that £72 as less than a week's rent, which they have to give it back, since it is a deposit (holding deposits ought to be set against rent, so also refundable, in a certain manner), or as about two times as much as the £35 they actually plan to take and not give back.

You really need to leave this area anyway. In a town, you won't be so dependent on DH's job, and life is cheaper just because there is more choice and therefore competition. There will be a bigger choice of properties, and any property will probably be smaller, too, so lower-maintenance.

Furthermore, the fact that you are considering going to the Land Registry to find out who your LLs are and where they live indicates that you don't have anyone local to just ask. Or no-one you trust, anyway. With the shyster behaviour of the agents, I don't actually blame you for feeling like this. There must be a reason that they feel they can do this to you, and that reason is probably because they can get away with it and "no-one" (no-one important to them = no-one with property) will object. Some community!

It's still worth trying to contact your LL directly, though, since s/he may well have an interest in objecting in your case: the agent is trying to sting another entire month's rent directly from the LL (the first month's rent on a new tenancy), rather than being satisfied with petty fees.

OP I think you are tying yourself in knots here.

If you intend to leave the property you do not need to give any notice as you have been served a Sec 21, you can leave on the 19th December (or before however you will need to pay up to 19th December).

The LL/Agent can not withhold an deposit for a "termination fee", they can only withhold money for damage to the property you have caused, which is not classed a wear and tear.

You need to get a copy of your inventory and gas safety certificate from the agent, to cover yourself when you check out. You have details of where your deposit is protected to that is covered.

By all means contact the LL direct and express your concerns on how the Agent is managing his property (As a LL I would want to know if a shyster was managing my property). However if you are planning on leaving now anyway it is for you to decide how far you take it.

Cavkc you said your agent also serves an s21 before the tenancy is up, even though they don't enforce it. Makes me wonder how many agents in England are doing this same. And why do they not get in trouble for that.
There is no problem with doing this, and can't understand why you think they should "get in trouble". If you have a tenant that doesn't pay then you have one step covered and can speed up the eviction. We don't do this but then we have never had a serial "non payer" (We have one tenant we issued a Sec 21 to after four weeks missed rent and no communication, serving the Sec 21 forced her to contact us and we sorted it out. Once she had explained her situation, we understood. She now over pays by a small amount each week which covers her for weeks she misses.).

I think there are more dodgy agents than there are LL's. The problem you have is an increasing number of people are buying a property to rent out with out fully understanding the law and their responsibilities as a LL. They place the property with an agent and expect them to be playing by the rules.

Good luck with getting you LL's details.

I meant why do they not get in trouble for forcing a tenant to pay contract renewal fees after they served an s21. It is clearly an unfair tactic for them to claw more from their tenant. But it seems every agent on the market does it these days. We're not in London but obviously it has spread. I found this article www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2139388/Tenants-hit-high-fees-including-30-moving-furniture.html

It talks about all the ridiculous extra fees agents charge these days (which they didn't use to in the past) was posted in 2012 and it says the practice started off in London where rental demand is high so the LLs and agents can dictate to the renters how much they should pay.

I wish I knew it earlier so I wouldn't be so surprised about it before. Anyway like I said, because I last signed a tenancy agreement with my previous LL about 7 years ago so I've been out of the loop for so long.

Why is the general public not doing something about this situation? Why is the government not doing anything? More I look at it, more I think my agents are just one of a bad bunch and actually their fees aren't even as high as some of the other high street agents in the big town I'm looking to move to. At least they don't charge £210 for the tenancy agreement like some other agents do (William H Brown, Connells, for example). But I'm still moving anyway. DH is not changing jobs so he faces a longer commute, but his job is not going to be stuck at one place as one reason why his company wants him is he is happy to relocate to different branches across the country as and when they need him to. His other colleagues wouldn't, but they've bought their houses so... I guess we will always be renters.

I have to correct you on that. The £800 deposit we paid to the last LL was not for 6 weeks rent and then some. The LL only wanted £520 (I.e. 1 month's rent) for deposit from new tenants with good refs, not 6 weeks. But because we didn't have a good ref from the crap LL before, he wouldn't let us pay just the one month's rent as deposit. I don't know how he got to the amount of £800... I don't know if he worked it out by adding another 2 weeks rent to the 1 month plus another £72. This he didn't explain, but he explained why he was wanting more than 1 month rent from us as deposit because he couldn't get a good ref from the LL before (the LL before just didn't answer his phone or something... anyway I told you that was a bad LL...typically very unresponsive and wanted to deduct our deposit for damage that was already there before we moved in, which he said he was already aware of! We ended up letting him deduct... couldn't be arsed to go to small claims for £80.

Anyway so back to my current agent. I'm not actually feeling like throwing more money into this so I will just write a letter but that's it. I am not expecting a great result though because other agents do it anyway, even in the big town we're going to.

Here's the thing. I'm sure I won't be the first to write a letter to agents to complain about their s21 practice to force people to pay renewal fees, or their termination fees. So if people have tried in the last, do they quietly get off from paying those extraneous fees if they write a letter to claim it's unfair, or do people just not get much joy from doing that and just have to suck it up because the practice is so widespread?

Been reading different estate agent reviews on allagents.co.uk and people do complain about all these extra charges but sounds like they ended up paying them anyway? Honestly, I don't even think I'm going to be surprised with extortionate fees anymore. I'd be surprised to see an agent not charging them actually. All the properties on Rightmove, Zoopla, etc that I have seen so far in all the areas I'm looking at moving to do this. I think my best bet avoiding fees is to go with a private LL who doesn't use an agent and who uses Gumtree or Openrent?

What matters to me now is that the agent and LL is responsive, on the ball with problems with the property, and don't try to charge us more than what they say they will.

We're probably going to move again for DH's work in the next year or two so another round of this rubbish fees again I expect, unless the government does something about it. Fingers crossed but I wouldn't be surprised if nothing was done.

Hi OP - actually I think you should take a slightly different tack in your letter to the agent, copied to the LL, purely to point out how these fees were hidden and how they are unfair.

1. Point out they sent you details of these additional fees they charge to tenants after you had paid the deposit and signed the AST. This is an unfair and underhand practice as you had no prior knowledge. And was the LL aware of these fees to the tenant?
2. They sent you a s.21 notice and asked you if you were staying at the same time - it's hardly a pleasant thing to do to someone and has made you feel unwelcome/wasn't clear what the intention was.
3. They are now pestering you - list all the contact you have had from them on this - to confirm whether you are staying or going.
4. The unannounced inspection - unlawful and you are entitled to quiet enjoyment.
5. The broken window and the failure to fix it despite you pointing it out and being like that when you moved in.
6. How they can justify charging a termination fee (which is probably the cost of registering your deposit btw) to a tenant when they have been charging the landlord finder's fees and management fees and will also be charging the LL an inventory check out fee (think 150+VAT just for that!). It's an unfair fee and one I suspect your LL is unaware of.
7. If you decide you are staying, but you do not wish to sign a new AST for a fixed term, the tenancy simply rolls over to a statutory periodic tenancy so how on earth to they justify charging a fee for that? It smacks of extortion: pay our fee or we enforce to s.21 notice.

It matters not a jot that other agents charge these kinds of fees - it's how they weren't communicated to you in advance and how the robbing gits are charging you and the LL. And when it boils down to it, they have probably needlessly cost the LL money.

Ah I see, well yes serving a Sec 21 to get the tenant to pay more fee's is wrong. Like I say this is the reason for us not using an agent to manage our properties, once we have a tenant we deal with them direct when renewing and no further fee's are involved.

I would suggest that you write/email your agents stating that you will not be held responsible for additional fees that you were not made aware of when you signed the tenancy. That said you really should have queried these charges when you were given the keys and paperwork, rather than several months later.

The issuing of an s.21 really isn't a big deal, it is generally only used if either the LL wants the property back at the end of your else, or if say you refuse to move out and they have to start eviction proceedings. If for example your lease ends on 1st December and you don't move out, or pay rent, to even start proceedings they would have to then issue you with a S.21 giving you two months notice, meaning you could legally stay at the property until February 2015 even if you don't pay your rent! This really is common practice to protect the LL from not receiving rent for several months.

You said that the letter with the S.21 asked if you could let them know if you intended to stay, which again is fairly standard. Whilst you can simply move out on the day your tenancy ends, the LL would then have to start finding other tenants, meaning the LL wouldn't be receiving rent yet still has costs, such as a mortgage. However whilst they can advertise the property, they cannot conduct any viewings without consent, which you are perfectly entitled to withhold.