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Letting agents generally receive bad press due to the fact that many people feel it is unfair for them to charge tenants fees for finding them a home when they are already paid by landlords. At the moment, a large proportion of the population are struggling to afford rent for private rental properties due to the fact that they have inflated as a result of the housing crisis. This means that many tenants lament the fact that on top of saving money for […]
Letting agencies across the country have come under fire today for charging fees of up to £350 on top of the deposit and rent payments tenants have to pay. The housing charity Shelter recently undertook a ‘secret shopper’ exercise in order to find out how much letting agents are charging their customers on average, and the results have shocked and angered both the charity and those working in the private rented sector.
So far there have been numerous landlord and letting agent associations that have criticised the new Immigration Bill which states that it will now be a landlords’ responsibility to make sure all their tenants are in the UK legally. Many have had concerns over how the plan will work, and others are saying that it is unfair for the government to make landlords spend their own time and money doing a job that they believe is the government’s responsibility.
There has been an on-going debate recently concerning whether letting agents should have the same regulations placed upon them as estate agents, with many claiming that this is the only way to protect both landlords and tenants from rogue agents. However, some have argued that the regulations placed on estate agents would not be appropriate for letting agents, which is why at a meeting in the House of Lords yesterday Housing Minister Mark Prisk made an amendment to the Bill.
Landlords with large property portfolios or other occupations generally rely on letting or estate agents to manage their properties for them for a fee. The fact that letting and estate agents have so much control over a landlords’ property – and ultimately their income – means that there has recently been calls for stricter regulations to be applied to them. Rogue agents not only lead to landlords losing their livelihood, but also tenants living in houses which are not properly maintained with nowhere […]