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?

It really does sound like the agents are ripping off both you and the LL and I would guess that the LL has no idea what is going on.

A few years ago we had a few flats and had a nightmare keeping tenants, they moved in they didn't pay, chucked them out, charged me again for a re letting fee. Over 2 years I literally received 6 months rent. Anyway I decided to appoint another agent (I don't live local to the properties). The agents were extremely reluctant to hand over keys etc and we soon found out why. One tenant had lived at his flat for almost 2 years and had never missed a rental payment, but we had only received 4 months rent as according to the agents the property was very hard to let! Long story short but we did get some of the money back from the agents but certainly not all of it. It's 4 years since then and I have only had two months when I didn't get rent due to vacancies. The previous years when we were earning nothing almost crippled us.

Thanks wowfudge that's an excellent point by point template for the letter.

No worries - I am annoyed for you! Where's the trust in the relationship when they behave like that?

I would also request their response in writing within 7 working days confirming they will not be levying the additional charges and will respect your right to quiet enjoyment.

From Shelter's website:
"Rules for letting agent's adverts and listings: All letting agencies must disclose upfront in their adverts and listings any fees they charge on top of the rent or deposit... If you see a letting agent not complying, report it to Shelter and we will complain to the Advertising Standards Authority."
england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/private_renting/costs_of_renting/letting_agent_fees_and_charges

I believe this is a new regulation which has come in within the last year.

Ok… this is very weird, but we (as tenants) were ALWAYS charged around £60 to extend our contracts. We have rented for 12 years, too...

I'd suggest that you add to wowfudge's template a statement pointing out that they cannot unilaterally impose additional contractual terms on you after the signing of the contract so as you never agreed to them they have no legal force/effect. Worth making clear that you know your rights as opposed to questioning their practices more generally.

Some people do complain about unfair EA fees and practices kettle, there used to be a section of the OFT website where you could read all the ones which had been upheld. Ultimately though the sad fact is many tenants are vulnerable and/or uninformed of their legal rights, or don't want to rock the boat because they can't afford to move. It's why the rental industry in this country is so exploitative of tenants.

Read more of the thread now.

Guys - are you all right about the renewal fees? It is normally called an admin fee, and if it was stated in the original tenancy agreement (that renewal would come at a cost of £60), then it's perfectly legit. The fee is for the time needed to communicate between tenant and LL, and also covers the re-registration of the deposit.

As far as I know, you can stay on the existing agreement on a statutory periodic tenancy, but then have no security of a fixed period tenancy. Many LLs don't want this either because it means you can never be certain as to when a tenant may leave.

We have had some BAD LLs and estate agents in the past. Our current ones are good, and we are sad to leave (for our own property!), but even they charged a tenancy extension fee.

The inventory thing is a whole different matter. I've learned the hard way and now comb through them like there's nothing else that matters in life...

Also - our previous (crap!) estate agents always sent the S.21 with the tenancy renewal form. Just to cover their a*ses...

Okay sorry just had a word with DH to get a clear picture of what happened. He said he was given the list of agents fees AFTER he paid the £100 holding fee, and BEFORE he signed the contract. Prior to that, they have never mentioned there were those fees. And we didn't think to ask because we were renting from a private LL for about 7 years previously who have never charged us those fees so we were clueless about how agents do things these days.

So when he got the list of fees, he thought he could not back out of it now since they may just take his £100 holding fee and not give it back whether or not he signed the contract, so he signed it anyway.

I don't know if he could have had his holding fee refunded back then if he balked at the charges. Also he was pretty desperate to find a house within a short time since me and the kids were going to move here soon. So he signed.

I am sorry if I made a mistake before saying he learnt about the fees after he signed the contract. No. He learnt about the fees after he paid them a £100 holding fee, which he wasn't confident would be refunded to him even if he wanted to back out after learning about the fees.

I know how he felt because a long time ago... read 13 years... I used to rent in London and my holding fee was not refunded even though I had to back out of signing the contract because I no longer needed the house. Different reasons from DH and I accept I was at fault there but I know how hard it is to have holding fees refunded.

We've rented with different LLs and agents over the last 12 years together as a couple and family, and we have lived north and south and west of England and moved over 8 times, and we have never, ever been charged a "tenancy renewal fee" ever. I don't know if the reason is because we've only ever rented with small local agents and private LLs who don't use agents to manage their properties. But we've never ever been charged "tenancy renewal fees". Our tenancies have always just became monthly rolling contracts after the initial 6 month AST was over. That's why I was surprised this agent charges tenancy renewal fees. I have no idea that this has been going on for the past 12 years?

Whether they would refund the £100 or not isn't really relevant, your DH signed the contract AFTER he was made aware of their fees. I'm sorry but I don't think you have any argument now for not paying their fees.

Yeah I accept it is a lesson learnt and I honestly don't see how it could have ended any other way. DH was desperate to find a property to rent. This was the only 3 bed house in the area. He'd already paid a holding deposit which is usually non refundable. There was nothing he could do. And he is happy to pay the fees to keep the agents happy so we get a good ref. Well I wouldn't say he's "happy" to pay them fees as such, but we were kind of backed into a corner and we had no choice but to take this.

Still have to admit that the agent was sly though. Only making the fees known after the holding fee was paid. And do you not agree that the practice of serving an s21 in order to extract "tenancy renewal fees" from tenants despicable?

I totally agree that they are using the s.21 for the wrong purpose.

I guess you have to take it as a lesson learnt and put it down to experience.

Some agents are absolute robbers!

IMO it's dangerous to normalise the practice of serving s21s to tenants during a 6 month AST... because this is then the justification used to extract tenancy renewal fees from tenants when 6 month ASTs are supposed to automatically become monthly rolling contracts without any fuss.

Serving s21 is a fuss created by the agent or LL themselves to justify further charging the tenant for something that shouldn't be charged if they'd just allowed the AST to run its course and be converted to a monthly rolling contract.

I accept that monthly rolling contracts are less secure, both for the agent or LL AND for the tenant. Mind you, when DH became jobless for a month recently and we were facing such financial uncertainty, the monthly rolling contract we were on meant we were always worrying about whether we can pay the next month's rent and if we couldn't, would the LL try to evict us and make us homeless.

SO I can see it on both sides...

I just think that serving s21 to force a tenant to pay extra to renew the tenancy is a dirty tactic, as with informing potential tenants about extortionate fees after a holding deposit had been paid.

People really should get together in an organised group to campaign about this issue to the government to force legislation change or regulation of the rental market. No use just individuals writing to their LLs and agents to protest charges and hope they get dropped. This won't affect legislation in any way.

Okay - so going back to my draft letter, stick with most of it and take out the bit about not finding out about the fees until you signed the AST until after you had paid the non-refundable fee. Then in conclusion state that given their behaviour you anticipate they will have the good grace to waive the termination fee should you decide not to stay.

The rest of it can pretty much stand. And don't let your DH deal with these things alone .

kettleoffish

We hardly ever rented privately with LLs - always with agents. After 12 years of renting, the renewal fee is completely normal to us. We rented our current flat on a 1-year contract with a 6-month break clause because we were looking to buy at the time. That means we could have moved out after 6 months if we wanted to. That's one way to not have to pay after 6 months straightaway, by the way, by taking a longer contract than intended, but embedding a break clause.

However, it turns out that we only found our house later, so had to extend and pay the renewal fee for a 1-year contract, but as we knew when we would complete on our house, we asked for a break clause coming into effect after two months. So we had to pay a renewal fee to just extend for two months, but to be honest, our agents have been really good to us, so we don't mind.

Our previous agents were a nightmare though. Hated them.

Check your tenancy agreement again kettle, is there a clause in there which says something about it being the full agreement between you? If so the agency fees are not contractual.

However, I still stand by the termination fee not being payable unless you are the ones terminating. You aren't, so it would be an unfair penalty and unenforceable IMO.

I can only find this in the tenancy agreement that mentions agents fees, under "General Clauses" :

1. The Tenant pays the Deposit as security for the performance of the Tenant's obligations and to pay and compensate the Landlord or his agent for the reasonable costs of any breach of those obligations including fees payable to the landlords agent. It is agreed that this sum shall not be transferable by the Tenant in any way and at any time against payment of the Rent and that no interest shall be payable on this Deposit.

I'm not sure... does this mean the agent can lawfully deduct from our deposit any fees that they feel are due to them? (like termination fees?)

I've never been charged renewal fees after renting with different LLs and agents for 12 or 13 years so you can understand why I think its unreasonable for them to charge renewal fees. In my experience, 6 month ASTs always run over and become monthly rolling contracts, with no paperwork to "confirm" anything or to start anything new, and no trouble or fees on us or the agent/LLs part. I have this file that I have kept for all these years to put all the paperwork I have received from the various people we've rented with over the years. I have never ever received any "tenancy renewals" or new contracts after the initial 6 month ASTs were up. I'm looking at my file now to double check. ... yep.

Actually now that I look, I see a letter from my ex-LL dated in August 2013 which says :

"In light of a new court case, please accept this letter as confirmation that your tenancy is now continuing on a Statutory Periodic Tenancy basis since the end of the fixed term noted on your Tenancy Agreement.

This letter also serves to confirm that your deposit still remains protected under the Tenancy Deposit Solutions Limited Scheme.

Copies of the prescribed information and tenant's information documents are attached.

No action is required by you regarding the above and this letter is for information purposes only."

So after renting with ex-LL since 2007, we've never received any new contracts, tenancy renewal stuff, no notices that our initial 6 month AST is continuing on a monthly rolling basis.

We only received such a letter last year, and it it was no hassle, just information for us and we didn't have to do anything. I do wonder what court case he was referring to though. But I think it's relevant only to the Deposit Scheme perhaps.

Ok... Termination fees when a contract is coming to an end anyway... that I've never heard of!!! We pay inventory check-out or something. Not a termination fee.

A Deposit Scheme which seems on the surface to protect tenants deposits but in reality doesn't really do the job but instead, involves ever more unnecessary paperwork.

Well I don't remember us ever having been charged check out fees. I'm looking through all the paperwork in my file, looking through all the past tenancy agreements... agency receipts, etc.. and you know what? We were never charged any "check out" fees ever either! Were we lucky or what?! How widespread is this check out fees thing??

It has always been like this for us when we want to move out :

Give one months' notice.

Return keys to agent or LL on move out date. Sometimes the agent or LL would want to come visit the property on the day we move out to do an inspection before we go, in our presence, but not every one of them does that.

Move to new place and await the return of deposit, minus any deductions LL or agent wants to make.

kettleoffish

For your own sanity, you really should get the "I've never paid renewal fee" out of your head. I've rented for as long as you have with estate agents, and this is the norm.

You just have to google "AST renewal fee" to know that many people pay it. Private LLs may not bother with the renewal of ASTs as it causes admin. But the role of estate agents to some extent is to protect the interest of the landlord - not the tenant. Creating a new AST, as I mentioned earlier, prevents tenants from giving a 1-month notice out of the blue which they could do when you let an AST agreement lapse (it becomes a statutory periodic one). The AST agreement lets landlords know when the tenant may leave and can prepare for that event. Yes, it's biased towards LLs - everything is when you rent!

For what it's worth, for one of the flats we rented, we were not allowed to give notice from November to January, so that the LL and agents don't have to worry about the Chrostmas lull! That was in the contract.

Hence, we can't wait to finally have our own place.

In our case, the inventory check-in and out is done by a third party. We sort of pay their fees (both LL and tenant). Sometimes, what happens is that the tenant pays for the "check-in" at the start which would be included in the admin fees charged by the estate agent (anything from GBP100-300), and the LL pays for the "check-out".

Of course, if the LL does the inventory himself, there may be no fee involved at all. But in my experience, having a third party do this works out better for both, the LL and the tenant...