Monday 16 September 2013

Run Away From Letting Agents!

This was sent by a reader: "Okay, call me naive but I find it shocking how poorly London rentals are managed. Our family rented a house that is supposed to be professionally managed by an agency. There is nothing that can be described as professional about it. There was no one to walk us through the property to make sure we understand the details of heating and plumbing. Problems are not handled because the manager cannot get in touch with the landlord. There is no binder or list of which appliances are covered by warranty -- or not --- for either us or the 'managing agent' so it is difficult to resolve what should be done… we are at the higher end of the market, but the neglect and poor management seem to be universal. "

I've noticed that many letting agents will do anything to avoid putting the actual owner's name on the rent contract. I'd been wondering why, when this could leave the agent wide open to legal action in cases of disrepair, since it’s arguable that they have taken responsibility for running the property.

The rewards must be massive. Attempting to hide the name of the owner, agents prevent tenants from approaching the owner directly. Why? Simple - so the tenants and landlord can't become better acquainted, realise they are both reasonable people and opt out of using letting agents.

This happened with Landgirl and myself. She and I met, learned that we were both reasonable people, and questioned why she should lose a percentage of her vital income to pay a firm who were more useless than 'Useless & Co - The Most Useless Company In Uselessville, Uselessshire, Uselessland.' I am trying to get across the following point. The old letting agents were...useless. And Landgirl was contracted to pay them for this uselessness.

Many landlords want to be ‘hands-off,’ which is fine, but letting agents just want to squeeze money from every transaction - like using their own, high cost, contractors, or constant charging both tenants and owners for every renewal. They do little other demonstrate dumbfounding, crass awfulness.

You'd think some governing body would intervene. They won't. My correspondent’s best option is to divorce those evil letting agents. The name of the owner is available, and it costs very little to obtain their name despite her agents seeming inability to contact her rentier. Notable also is the fact the she describes herself as at the 'higher end' of the market. We are all renters at some point in our lives, and even in top-notch properties with enormous rents, there is no guarantee that she will be treated fairly, let alone well. A friend of mine contacted the owner of his flat after the agent went bankrupt. When last we spoke, the owner was deemed responsible for refunding the unprotected deposit, to his utter astonishment.

Especially when rentiers own one or two properties, and they live in the same town or city, all agents do is coin in money. So take a deep breath. Tenants and owners - say hello. Shake hands. Be reasonable. Prepare to deal direct with each other. It's the sensible way forward.

16 comments:

space cadet said...

Re the deposit and liability thing, hear this, from Radio 4's MoneyBox:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039yp0m

"The deposit of 4-6 weeks' rent paid by tenants is supposed to be fully protected according to the law. But what happens when a letting agent goes out of business and the deposit disappears. Who is ultimately liable and how can the tenant get the deposit back?"

Short answer is : The landlord is always responsible for your deposit, even if that landlord is using a letting agent.

In other news : 4 Scottish tenants win their appeals against the evil bedroom tax. (same podcast).

Londoner said...

I was completely amazed to obtain a reasonable landlord this year. After a year with a letting agent, neither of us could understand what they were doing for the fee they were charging her - since all contact about repairs or anything else were to go direct to her. They seemed to be charging just to take money from me, and transfer it to her, minus £100 a month.

So once the 12 months is up at the end of this month, she is ditching them and we are going rogue. We've signed one of those WH Smith contracts. Despite being fully furnished (with all kinds of pots and pans and junk seemingly abandoned by previous tenants) she doesn't want an inventory. She also doesn't want a deposit, after we get ours back from the agent. On this subject I think her quite mad... though personally I know I won't make off with all her appliances and furniture after trashing the place, it is perhaps a little TOO trusting.

But I am not questioning it, it will mean we can put £1500 into an ISA!

I can hardly believe my luck, after years and years of terrible lettings agents treating me like an entry on their balance sheet, I finally feel like a human being?

RenterGirl said...

Lucky you Londoner - mind you, I'm lucky too, in similar circumstances. But SC - that's true, which means, in another post, I will tell what happened to him.

RenterGirl said...

Hey anon - I always delete spam/self-promotion. Yep. Hmmm...yourself.

Anonymous said...

As a former letting negotiator I have to completely agree with all points raised...HOWEVER... the agent I worked for was an ARLA registered agent which meant we were governed (and quite strictly) by the association of residential letting agents, and used the TDS (tenancy deposit scheme) had a three quote rule for all works that needed to be done and also liaised with our tenants re things that needed doing. Obviously can’t say we were perfect as there were times where things couldnt get done asap and that led to disagreements. Regarding the whole name thing, this is a bug bear of mine, all agreements should have the landlords name on them as is a contract between the tenant and the owner, NOT the tenant and the agent (unless they own the property). All agents are legally obliged to give the contact details and name of the landlord within 14 days if the tenants requests in writing. We always put the landlords name as we knew that the landlord had signed terms of business with us to enable them not to leave for that period. It is so disappointing hearing the same points over and over again as it really doesn’t take much for agents to do things correctly, I think all agents should be regulated as this is the only way to sort out the good from the bad.

Anonymous said...

What is the best advice for finding a private landlord? There are no search criteria on rightmove or zoopla to do this as they only allow letting agents advertise.
Is this letting agent on your blog cheap with their fees than anyone else? They must be good to be on here

Anonymous said...


Its 21 days from the request to a letting agent to make available the landlords details and is well worth doing .
Penny if you check on you know where's facebook posts or - cough cough- website you can get a free yes FREE request form , a big yep Mmmmmmmmm back and stick your finger in your ear for good measure !

Dazzla said...

Space Cadet:

I wish I'd known about that site 6 months ago. It'd have saved me a few quid and several nights' sleep.

space cadet said...

If it's any consolation Dazzla, they only got going in 2013, around April/May time i think. I do hope you're able to get more sleep from now on though (humour aside, i know it's no joke trying to find a place to rent in London).

Emma said...

There's an agency local to me that absolutely refuses to pass on the landlord's details to tenant - they take advantage of the fact that most tenants don't know that they have a right to know this. Anyway, they have a policy that if a tenant wants them to pass on a question or request to the landlord, the tenant has to pay £25 per question for the privilege. It's things like this that highlight why this country really, really, really needs some kind of regulation for letting agents.

space cadet said...

FFS, that's OUTRAGEOUS! I hope somebody either: a) reports them to ARLA - if they're even members; it all being voluntary of course b) tells the local press c) stands outside with placards telling it how it is or d) all of the above. Tenants are in this together.

Anonymous said...

You seen the tenants voce they collected all likes and registrations on Facebook turns out they are a letting agent selling the info to landlrds

RenterGirl said...

space cadet said...
What is the best advice for finding a private landlord?

Try this:If you're in Scotland, Shelter Scotland suggest others, but unhelpfully don't tell us if these site are acting as agents, or not. Which pisses me off, when letting agents in Scotland are still scamming ppl for fees (totally illegal here).

RenterGirl said...

Matt said...
@space

Well - they appear to be charging tenants £20 for referencing out of their "holding deposit".


(Clue: if it's a fee, it ain't a deposit).

And they are doing it in Scotland, as you say.

They will be falling foul of the (extremely stupid) Scottish law.

The blanket denial of liability to any of their customers is also worrying. Last para:




RenterGirl said...

I'm sorry but I've deleted the name of the site you all referred to. You had boosted their SEO profile with your link. They'd already placed several spam comments of their own.

Gardenpea said...

If you go to the Land Registry website then you can obtain the name and address of the property's owner for £3. I've done this before - very easy, and none of this faffing around with begging estate agents for contact details http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/public/property-ownership