This Is Why We Hate Them

Letting agents wonder why we loathe them so vehemently; why we hate them with passion. They ask why anyone would introduce laws to control them. Commiserations then to English readers, who just last week lost the chance for laws similar Scotland, where fees and premiums charged to tenants are outlawed.

Soon come, as my friend used to say. In the meantime, here’s my list of the cheekiest, most corrupt, vile, venal, heinous fees I’ve seen. So far…

1. The admin fee ruse. One mercifully former letting agent charged this. When I queried it, he explained, knowing it was unlawful, that his firm needed to run their office. I explained that I needed to pay for my removal costs. He dropped the fee from £150 to £75.

2. Reference fees. This ruse purportedly covers the onerous task of phoning or emailing previous rentiers, current employers and banks. Except all are pointless and in any case they rarely pursue them. Licence to print money, basically.

3. Holding fees. Supposed to remove the home from the market while tenants are checked, the money deducted when tenants pay deposits. In reality, they are often retained.

4. Cleaning fees. Tenants moving in or out both face this one, which again might be for work not completed. Tenants would do well to request receipts and then check.

5. Check in fees. This pays for the debilitating, strength-sapping chore of handing over keys. Keys are heavy, don’t you know.

6.See also their equivalent in the other direction – the ‘check out fee,’ same scam but with the added threat of deposits withheld if they’re not paid.

7. Inventory fees. My own Landgirl discovered to her cost, this involved outsourced employees who visited the flat, did nothing then billed for their 'work'. Brilliant.

8. The fee. Let’s not be too complicated, one agent thought. Let’s not be fancy, or use obfuscatory terms. Let’s just call the fee ‘the fee.’ Without any explanation whatsoever.

9. The continuous affordability assessment fee. This thing of logical beauty hypothesises that the tenant pays every six months to see if they can afford the home. The letting agent whose firm tried this one described her behaviour as ‘a game.’ Oh I sued them so bad.

10. The fee – it is in effect a fee or premium – when ‘costs’ were demanded by the letting agent who overcharged my friend when he demanded a refund for overpayment caused by their ineptitude. He sued. Successfully. Blimey.

11. Renewal fees. Tough work this. Those poor exhausted letting agents must carry several sheets of paper over to the photocopier, then lift the lid. Modern servitude with hard labour, that’s what it is.

12. This last one never stops giving. The finance fee. Yep. The fee charged by one brazen operative for collecting all their other fees. Which is dastardly and fiendish, but soon to be illegal.

NB these are frequently levied on both parties to transaction – rentiers and tenants, which is banned in other industries such as the travel business.

Be brave – stay strong. It won’t be allowed for much longer. No to transparency. Yes to the ban on charges.

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/run-away-from-letting-agents.html

The Property Pixies Are Here To Save Us!

I believe in the property pixies, and so should you. If we ever stop believing in the property pixies, then they will die, and we renters mustn’t let that happen.

The property pixies operate secretly at night, repairing roofs, negotiating with malevolent landlords intent on evicting blameless tenants on a whim. The property pixies are marvellous: they visit letting agencies to read them the riot act albeit in a kindly way – in their little hats with bells on (the pixies – not the agents.)

Housing Minister John Healey also believes in the property pixies. I know this to be true because that’s the only possible explanation for his latest plans. Admittedly, regulating the private rented sector is daunting but here’s his big idea. It’s a list:

• A hotline (anyone remember the cones hotline…?)
• Word of mouth advisory website (which will be closed down immediately due to libellous comments.)
• A requirement for written tenancies.
• Boosting the number of tenants protected under the established tenancy agreements (but not ending the farcical six month long agreements in common use now.)
• A national landlord register (but no fine/penalty for not registering.)
• ‘Better regulation’ of letting and management agents. I love the word ‘better’ - better than what? Better than now, when it’s like the wild west?

It’s all as hazy as the Rugg Report which seemed to say that most tenants are happy, and surmised that because the majority are happy, there’s no urgent need for strong laws to protect the minority who are turfed out of a damp, shabby hovel without notice on a whim by thugs. Admittedly this doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s horrible.

Landlords enjoy a range effective and efficient ways (some legal – others not so) to evict erring renters, but tenants have little power. We move on silently, even if the owner has gone bankrupt and we’ve been notified by bailiffs hammering on the door, even if they have left the flat in a dangerous state. We pack up again, and hope, often in vain, that we’ll get our deposit back (yep there’s the Tenancy Deposit Scheme but some tenants are scared to use it – tribunals seem daunting, and landlords know this.)

John Healey must surely believe in the property pixies - he trusts them to enforce his proposals, and those pixies can be fierce. Which is a good thing, because unless sanctions punishing errant landlords are included and enforced (forfeiting the property or punitive fines) then those naughty landlords will carry on disregarding rights, thumbing their noses at the law, and taunting the pixies. Bad landlords must be forced to behave; they won’t do so voluntarily - it just won’t happen.

Right now I’m sitting at home, waiting for those adorable little fellas to reseal my windows and persuade my letting agents to refund the fees they charged unlawfully. The property pixies take care of everything, I am completely sure of it. You don’t believe me? Well then, take a good look at the sterling work done by the financial services elves.

Just A Rentergirl Who Can't Say No.

Scotland has sorted out those whimsical, onerous and imaginative letting agents admin fees good and proper. They’ve made them illegal. Agents caught charging fees are transported in chains to Rhyl, beaten about the face with cabbages and obliged to record a sincere, humble and profuse apology broadcast on youtube before repaying all the money and then some.

Yeah, right. There is a law, but letting agents brazenly ignore it, and have done for decades.

When I was sorting my current home (a great flat I might add – I seem to have been lucky for the second time) I raised the whole fees-being-illegal-thing, but you know how it works: no fees paid=no flat.

So: here are some other stories. The tenant who moved into a flat, and was told that she would be charged a £50 admin fee. It’s a three bed flat: that’s £150 in total. An online credit check costs about a fiver, and they didn’t contact her referees.

She asked me what she should do. I suggested that she should mention casually and chattily that the fees were illegal. She was told: ‘It’s a grey area.’ Only in so far as a minority opinion argues that ‘reasonable’ fees may be charged, to cover actual expenses.

Another prospective tenant queried the purpose of that £100 ‘key-money’ (this scam operates under a multitude of different names.) She was told it covered the onerous and time consuming duty of hauling in written references from her nominated referees (perhaps they live on the moon; rocket fuel is costly which might explain the rates.) Can you can guess what happened next? Just as with myself, none of the referees was actually contacted.

My agency justifies these mystery monies: “...as we have to pay to run our office.” Moving left me out of pocket, what with storage, removal vans to hire, and deposits to find. Perhaps I should send them an invoice?

I was also ambushed by sudden news of six weeks in advance for the deposit. I queried this, as tenants/customers are entitled to prior warning of any extraordinary costs, but was told by a snide letting-agent: “…this is just what charge; it’s what we charge. You can always say no.”

What would happen if I had stood my ground, looked the agent in the eye, and in my firmest stentorian tones declaimed: “No! I will not pay your illegal charges! Vive la revolution!” But I was technically homeless, and when people say: be strong and refuse to pay it’s hard even for me and I know my rights. I am aware that a charity did some secret shopping, and discovered that the majority of agencies openly and contemptuously break the law.

There is an obvious course of action: the courts, for a possible case involving fraud, extortion and charging illegal fees, but if I choose that path, I might lose the flat. Oh, this mountainous dilemma. What would you do?

(NB: I’ve been away from blogging. Sorry, but that broken memory stick sideswiped me. I need to get it repaired – all advice welcome.)