31/10/2011 
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2:53 pm
17/05/2012
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QuoteFresh from its success in Scotland, where it has won its campaign to get all tenancy fees comprehensively outlawed, Shelter has turned its sights on all lettings agents south of the border.
Horror stories in the last few days from Scotland suggest that the fall-out has been spectacular, with some agents saying that they are being physically intimidated by tenants demanding their money back, staff resigning and more agency closures.
One agent described the market as having turned overnight, after the Scottish housing minister announced tightening up the law.
In Scotland, fees were already illegal but the legislation was not clearly worded. New wording will be put in place shortly, making it explicitly illegal for any and all tenants to be charged anything beyond rent and deposits.
Now, Shelter has announced the results of a You Gov survey into letting agents’ fees, which found that 23% – equivalent to 11m people – felt they had been ripped off by letting agents in England.
more http://www.lettingagenttoday.c…..ss-England
My Opinion
It was only a matter of time before Shelter set their sights on England – hummm this will ruffle some feathers and be the end of the line for some letting agents. It may also mean an increase in costs for landlords who want Agents to manage their properties but for those who want let only I think the on-line Agents will benefit from this if it happens.
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3:03 pm
12/10/2011
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Agreed the LA business model will be a lot tighter.
I agree that this will cause a shake out of the industry which will be a good thing.
It will get rid of wrongun LA leaving behind a hard core of professional and competent LA.
These LA will sink or swim based on the service they provide to LL; not on the amount of dodgy fees they can garner from mug tenants.
Those good LA out there will attract further business as the rogues are driven out of business.
I say about time to.
LA are dead, long live good LA!
4:33 pm
30/11/2011
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It's all too easy for everyone who's had a bad experience with a letting agent to jump on the bandwagon and demand an end to 'all tenant fees' as Shelter have managed to achieve in Scotland. However, the implications of this action could be bad news for tenants.
Many of the bad letting agents who are simply exploiting the strong demand for rental property by charging unfair fees and failing to provide a professional service may go out of business – a great result.
On the other hand, the professional, licensed and regulated letting agent who provides a consistently high standard of letting and property management service to their clients will still need to cover their costs. Currently, tenants pay fees to contribute to the costs of referencing, administration, etc, which are very real costs to a letting agent's business. With a complete ban on tenant fees will come an increase in landlord fees to cover these costs. Many landlords will see yet another cost to letting their property as a good reason to sell, while others will struggle to maintain a sufficient return on investment and are likely to increase rents.
Ultimately, tenants will suffer through increased rents!
Rather than tar all letting agents with the same brush, lets remember that there are professional, licensed, accredited and regulated agents and there are rogue agents. More time spent promoting the importance of using the right agent would be far more helpful than whipping up an anti-agent hysteria amongst landlords and tenants.
4:52 pm
12/10/2011
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No what will happen is more LL will realise they can manage things themselves.
Increasing fees to a certain amount will cause a tipping point to occur and LL will just not use normal hight st LA.
They are not needed, I have not used them for years.
I advertise exactly the same places you do and it costs ME ZERO and the tenant a total of £219 and that includes the 1st years RGI.
Yes I know I am, managing things.
10% of my gross rental income is about £3900.
That is an awful lot of car mileage and my time at say £100 per day.
Most LL don't need LA in the high st sense.
Of course there will always be a demand for LA for those LL that do not wish to or are not so disposed towards managing their own property investments.
I am afraid you will have to accept less profits if you fees you charge are banned unless of course you can force your management charges up.
I don't think this would be sustainable.
LL will desert you.
Time to move from expensive high st locations as the expense will not be justified.
I wouldn't rely on your referencing, I do my own in addition to the online LA I use but don't pay a penny for.
ALL my referencing qualifies as a RGI check.
ANY other form of referencing that does not guarantee to qualify as valid for a RGI policy is useless.
What you should do is encourage your LL clients to carry out the RGI reference themselves, or you could do it and with policy it would cover the LL for 1 year at £99.
I bet you charge more than that for referencing and that is without a RGI policy.
Do you see how useless your service is.
Far better to become an experty manager of LL property portfolios, and put the LL interests first than trying to get as much fee income as you can from LL and tenants.
The business model is changing; so you will yours if you wish to remain in business.
Tenants and LL alike will welcome the Sotland news and can't wait for it to be imposed in England.
Time to get your thinking cap on about how you WILL need to rejig your business model for the changed times acoming!!
5:08 pm
20/05/2011
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Tom Tarver said
It's all too easy for everyone who's had a bad experience with a letting agent to jump on the bandwagon and demand an end to 'all tenant fees' as Shelter have managed to achieve in Scotland. However, the implications of this action could be bad news for tenants.Many of the bad letting agents who are simply exploiting the strong demand for rental property by charging unfair fees and failing to provide a professional service may go out of business – a great result.
On the other hand, the professional, licensed and regulated letting agent who provides a consistently high standard of letting and property management service to their clients will still need to cover their costs. Currently, tenants pay fees to contribute to the costs of referencing, administration, etc, which are very real costs to a letting agent's business. With a complete ban on tenant fees will come an increase in landlord fees to cover these costs. Many landlords will see yet another cost to letting their property as a good reason to sell, while others will struggle to maintain a sufficient return on investment and are likely to increase rents.
Ultimately, tenants will suffer through increased rents!
Rather than tar all letting agents with the same brush, lets remember that there are professional, licensed, accredited and regulated agents and there are rogue agents. More time spent promoting the importance of using the right agent would be far more helpful than whipping up an anti-agent hysteria amongst landlords and tenants.
Tom , I believe you are right we should never slate any profession because of a few bad ones, god forbid there are enough crap landlords around to keep shelter in business for years.
What makes me laugh is that everyone in this country wants to regulate and legislate every thing in the property market all the time. If a tenant does not like the fees "Don't use the agent" if a landlord does not like the fees "Don't use the agent", it is not like letting agents are the only source of rental property available, if you dont like agents rent out privately.
What they are really legislating is to protect those tenants and landlords that don't read the ferking contract properly and then scream blue murder when they get the bill.
An elderly lady wants to let her house out and does not want to be on the front line, she needs a good letting agent and that letting agent is entitled to charge what they want as long as it is declared up front. I can tell you that as a landlord of 135 tenants, I wont be paying for a tenants reference, and I wont be paying for their inventory either or for the drawing up of their AST.. and if they don't want to pay for it they aint getting the property!!
Shelter are such a bunch of bigots that wont be happy until any eviction of any sort is illegal and the landlords pay the tenants rent! lol 
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5:29 pm
17/05/2012
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LRS page one of Google for "Shelter slams letting agent fees across England" in just 3 hours
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6:04 pm
30/11/2011
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There will always be landlords that prefer to manage their own property and for some its the best option, but there are many more who rely on a good professional letting agent.
Mr Barrett – Our full management service includes a rent guarantee and legal expenses cover and all referencing is carried out by a professional referencing agency. If you have any property in Worcestershire/ Cotswolds, get in touch, put one under management with us and in less than 12 months I'll change your mind about letting agents – you wouldn't be the first! 
Hope to chat soon.
6:12 pm
20/05/2011
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Tom is a member of Landlordreferencing.co.uk and actively lifestyle references to protect his clients from taking bad tenants.
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6:57 pm
12/10/2011
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I think you misunderstand; I fully accept that there is a need for good LA.
You appear to be one of those.
I can assure you however that if I had a property in your area and lived about 45 mins drive away from it I would NOT use you.
Plus I am still capable physically of managing things.
Should my circumstances move outside those parameters then absolutely I would have no hesitation against potentially using you.
I would imagine that for the rest of my life I will NOT need a LA.
As my mortgages have to be redeemed in 18 years and the average LA commission is say 10% that will cost me about £41040.00.
I think I'll keep the 41 grand and do my own managing thankyou.
I prefer to self-manage presently.
LA like you will be able to overcome the loss of fees as you attract more LL due to your good practices.
You appear to be a really good LA and I don't doubt you are run efficiently but you cannot and will not be able to increase your mangement charges to say 20% to cover the loss of fee income.
Therefore I would suggest that you need to make it more known amonst LL and tenants as to what a fanrastic service you provide and you will start attracting business.
I suggest you start making it known that you will NOT be charging tenants these rip off fees and LL will not pay ridiculous trumped up charges.
Once that info gets out there, you will find tenants beating a path to your door aswell as LL as you will be known to have loads of tenant applicants due to your non-fee structure.
You would have 1st mover advantage and have your systems and business methodology set up for when the inevitability of LA fees being banned occurs.
8:28 pm
17/05/2012
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Tom Tarver said
There will always be landlords that prefer to manage their own property and for some its the best option, but there are many more who rely on a good professional letting agent.Mr Barrett – Our full management service includes a rent guarantee and legal expenses cover and all referencing is carried out by a professional referencing agency. If you have any property in Worcestershire/ Cotswolds, get in touch, put one under management with us and in less than 12 months I'll change your mind about letting agents – you wouldn't be the first!
Hope to chat soon.
Nice one Tom. Will I be seeing you at my NLA meeting in Bromsgrove on 24th October?
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11:39 pm
12/10/2011
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Tom Tarver said
There will always be landlords that prefer to manage their own property and for some its the best option, but there are many more who rely on a good professional letting agent.Mr Barrett – Our full management service includes a rent guarantee and legal expenses cover and all referencing is carried out by a professional referencing agency. If you have any property in Worcestershire/ Cotswolds, get in touch, put one under management with us and in less than 12 months I'll change your mind about letting agents – you wouldn't be the first!
Hope to chat soon.
Nope you will never change my mind on LA.
I have no doubt you do an excellent job; I just don't need you or your services; at least not yet!
I can obtain them for free or very little cost.
Of course there will be LL that do not wish to be involved and of course your good services at a price come in handy for them
The maximum fees my tenant would pay would be £210.
If you charge the LL and tenant anymore than that you are ripping them off
Just to show you what can be achieved as you don't seem to know I'll explain to you how it is possible for a LL to keep costs down
Advertising on internet, ZERO cost for LL, £60 for tenant for referencing.
AST, free off internet
Inventory, free off internet
LRS referencing , free off internet
RGI fo a year including legal costs for claims up to £50000 per claim, £99
Viewing , free
Rent payment admin cost , ZERO
So included in my £150 I charge the tenant is
AST
Inventory
DPC
RGI
Check in and out
The tenant has paid £60 to makeurmove for referencing which I ignore as the RGI company I use does the referencing and they advise they have an arrangement with DAS that their referencing is adequate.
Why would the tenant pay more than that when they don't have to.
My tenants mostly come from referrals s my name is getting round as a LL who doesn't stitch his tenants up with ridiculous rip off charges.
My tenants love the low charges.
Some I don't charge anything apart from a deposit fee as they are cabin crew and they are trustworthy, so I don't bother with RGI.
No need to check them.
Cabin crew must be the most checked people EVER!!!
So can you justify the charges you levy on your LL and tenants; I very much doubt it.
So for the time being I will do it the cheaper way, my way.
But I do not discount the possibility that were my circumstances to change and I deemed you were the best LA to manage my circumstances I would have no hesitation in using you.
Don't however rely on me becoming a client of yours anytime soon!!
But it is good to know about quality LA.
You show that by bothering to use this forum and use the services of LRS.
So you have loads of 'brownie point' ahead of the competition as far as I am concerned.
Hope you carry on being successful as you have been to date.
Good LA are as rare as rocking horse s--t!!!
1:34 pm
Hi, does anyone know if this ban is just agency fees? I manage several properties and do not take a deposit as I believe the system too onerous, instead charge a 295.00 landlord fee with which I have the apartments cleaned professionally, over, upholstery, and general, if these fees are banned who then pays for this cleaning as tenants seem incapable of doing it to relet standard.
1:59 pm
17/05/2012
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alan loughlin said
Hi, does anyone know if this ban is just agency fees? I manage several properties and do not take a deposit as I believe the system too onerous, instead charge a 295.00 landlord fee with which I have the apartments cleaned professionally, over, upholstery, and general, if these fees are banned who then pays for this cleaning as tenants seem incapable of doing it to relet standard.
WOW! Thank you for raising that Alan I had not even given it a thought. I know many, many landlords who now charge an adminstration fee rather than a deposit – they take the hit on the cleaning, damages etc but cover the cost of referencing, AST, Inventory, advertising to reduce their overheads. Many tenants like this because the admin fees are usually between £100-300 which is a lot less than the average deposit and the tenant does not have to worry about arguing with the landlord are the end of the tenancy about cleaning, damages, losses etc. Most of the landlords I know who do this would chase a tenant for outstanding rent through the small claims courts – which I am told is less stressful that a deposit dispute.
I have not tried this model myself because I like to have something that the tenant wants back to ensure that they give me what I want back in reasonable condition and I am not sure how it would work if they were not expecting anything back?
However back to your excellent point. It would depend on how any legislation was worded and in which Act it appeared. For example if it appeared in the The Estate Agents Act 1979 or The Accommodation Agencies Act 1953 it may well exclude landlords but if, for example it became part of The Housing Act 2004 it probably would include landlords.
What a very interesting question? I would love to hear a legal opinion on this one?
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3:53 pm
12/10/2011
OfflineThis is very interesting…
What would happen to High Street LAs, with the huge cost already incurred in adverting on RM, Zoopla, etc; overhead for business premises, staff, utilities, etc. Tenants' fees is used to offset the fees charged landlords for letting.
How would this play out? Certainly, many LLs would not want to bear all the cost of letting their properties, alone. It will come back to the tenants as higher rent, I imagine.
Honest and reliable LAs will, certainly, survive. So, I am confident I will. We provide valuable service for LLs at minimal cost. Also, our tenants' fees are standard -one week's rent. We do not charge tenants any other fee for check in or out, inventory, references, securing deposits, etc.
6:21 pm
20/05/2011
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I have copied this answer from another post I just posted on http://www.landlordreferencing…..ng-agents/ because I think it relevant to both articles.
What do we call rip off fees, is it when they charge for things they have not declared, or is it when they charge £150 for something that we all know cost £5 to buy.
If it is the former then OK, That's wrong but if it is the latter then that is just a margin they ask for. No tenant or landlord needs to pay those fees if they don't want and some don't, that is their democratic choice.
I once went to the savoy for tea with my mum and nearly died of shock when I saw that a quarter of a salmon and cucumber sandwich, pot of tea and a scone was £25 "King ell I declared that only cost £1 to put together". That's the point I did not need to buy it and because some pay it and they get away with it is not a "rip off"
We do not need regulations like big kids to restrict what agents charge, that is communism, we need regulation for transparency. Then the choice is the choice made by democratic adults as to whether we buy their service or not.
Just a good old fashioned price list will be fine.
9:41 pm
13/02/2012
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This is an interesting debate. We currently work with 5 Councils taking people who are classed as homeless by accepting the housing bond. Recently we approach Oldham Council, http://www.gov.uk/info/200679/…..ng_options to register a property where the Landlord would accept a bond. They informed us they no longer administered the scheme and the contract had been won by http://www.fcho.co.uk/main.cfm .
We made contact with fcho and were informed that they would be happy to put someone from their homeless register into one of our properties and they would charge us £190 + VAT for the pleasure. When we informed them we would be happy to accept the bond they said they would provide a bond and it would cost us £500. Needless to say we did not use their service and in doing so denied a homeless family of a home.
In discussion with one of the admin team at Tameside Housing Options we were informed that they were considering making the same charges when placing the homeless into private property. I understand Newcharter, who runs Tameside Housing Options, on behalf of Tameside Council are linked with FCHO.
I guess Shelter will have to deal with these companies as well as Letting Agents.
Polar Property Services
10:11 pm
12/10/2011
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I think these councils seem to think they are doing the LL a favour and want to charge for the privilege of facilitating that homeless person in a LL property.
Now I might be missing something here but there are more than enough PRS tenants desperate for rental accommodation.
If councils have this attitude they won't house many of their homeless and consequently the TA costs will rocket.
Pity the poor council tax payers of these councils.
I think you will find most of these councils have a slight red tinge to their politics.
Remember old habits die hard in councils with long established political representation and therefore old attitudes persist.
To them the LL is a class enemy.
Anything they can to stitch up a LL they will try.
These councils just don't seem to get the new rental market dynamics.
LHA claimants are no longer needed.
I just don't get how they think they can charge for providing some homeless drunk or whatever, which is what these people tend to be.
Dysfunctional in so many ways.
Yeah right I am going to put one of these up in my accommodation.
What planet are these councils on!?
10:34 pm
17/05/2012
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No Paul you are not missing a point many local authorities actually do believe that landlords will pay them to help us to help them to discharge their statutory duties into the PRS.
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