Shelter’s campaign to get tenants' fees abolished has come under fierce attack from the Residential Landlords Association.
Although the campaign is aimed at letting agents, RLA chairman Alan Ward said it was anti-landlord because of the proposal that landlords should bear all the costs of setting up a tenancy.
He said: “Once again we have Shelter peddling the same anti-landlord rhetoric, seeking to place yet more costs on the shoulders of landlords.
“With almost 90% of landlords being either individuals or couples renting out just a few properties, Shelter seems to think that landlords have a bottomless pit of money to spend.
“A similar scheme in Scotland has put many letting agents out of business, thereby reducing choice for tenants and landlords.
“Shelter’s campaign to impose on landlords excessive and unneeded red tape and costs will only serve to drive up rents for the very same tenants they try to serve.”
One landlord said he estimates landlords are already paying agents at least £1.7bn a year.
Jonathan Monjack is a media lawyer who formed a landlords’ collective called the Happy Tenant Company, and which operates a £500m portfolio in Greater London on the principle of group buying power. The company uses a panel of letting agents.
He said: “So many landlords – particularly those who aren’t professional property investors – get ripped off by letting agents who not only charge huge commissions for finding a tenant but also huge renewal fees simply for keeping the tenant in the property.
“The £1.7bn figure relates only to the amount that landlords are paying to secure and keep a tenant. In actual fact, they often end up paying significantly more to agents via management fees, ambiguous and ubiquitous administration fees and hefty mark-ups on any maintenance works that need doing. Agents often earn yet more revenue via fees charged to tenants and backhanders from contractors.
“Many landlords who don’t want the hassle of finding a tenant and managing their buy-to-let property themselves think agents are a necessary evil, but they don’t have to be.
“We believe in fairness and transparency. Under our group buying model, landlords get letting rates as low as 4% with no renewal fees and we offer flat fees for management with no mark-ups or admin fees.”
* For more comment on Shelter, see today's blog by Simon Duce.
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Comments
so on a 550 PCM we would charge £660 per year with our 10% commission, If a new tenant is found that will bring it up to £935.00 per year. How are they saving money by going to these guys? complete load of rubbish.
Check out the happy tenant website and read the case studies; http://www.happytenant.co.uk/ less than transparent and mis-leading use of terminology. It would be interesting to learn how Jonathan Monjack and Co make money, what is their fee structure?
His comment; “So many landlords – particularly those who aren’t professional property investors – get ripped off by letting agents who not only charge huge commissions for finding a tenant but also huge renewal fees simply for keeping the tenant in the property” is out of order and without facts to back it up, this makes for poor journalism which simply helps the constant bashing of our sector.
Shelter, Jonathan Monjack and everyone else who wants to jump on the band-waggon, please get your facts right and stop making life difficult for the 1000’s of small, independent firms that provide a great service and value for money to landlords and tenants in all regions of the UK.
Letting Agent Today; how about balancing the content of your articles and do some positive features on many of your readers and subscribers businesses’.
Unless I am mistaken Shelter are seeking to urge the government to control the fees charged.
It was written into the Scottish legislation about "premiums" and that is what Shelter wanted clarifying, unfortunately for the agents up there, is was clarified against them.
Unless I am mistaken, the English legislation doe snot need clarifying so what Shelter are seeking to achieve will require new legislation
There is a petition started on this website which is self explanatory
http://www.lettingagentsupportklub.co.uk/petition.html
If you haven't signed it yet please do so - It has got off to a great start in just 3 days and please spread the word!
Are you trying to wind me up?
You are exactly right but I just get so wound up by how Shelter manipulate data. Two percent of 2000 odd people were asked a question and suddenly without any qualification whatsoever about the demographic of the sample its get extrapolated out to 1 million people
I fully understand the maths but If one asked the readership of LAT what they thought of Shelter it would be unjustified to claim that 65,000,000 people think Shelter are devious data manipulators.
Once again Cambell Robb is tackling a core issue he is ignorant about. I won’t bother to say where the problems are with Student lets, it will be amusing to watch Robb and his sycophants embarrass themselves further.
For anyone who is in any doubt that Shelter are involved in manipulating information to tar landlords and letting agents as rogues I give you exhibit A:
http://media.shelter.org.uk/home/press_releases/almost_one_million_people_victim_of_landlord_scams,_shelter_research_reveals3
7 out of the 10 frauds listed by Shelter aren't even committed by landlords they are comitted by con men posing as landlords.
As a lawyer Mr Monjack can't really expect to get away with;
"So many landlords – particularly those who aren’t professional property investors – get ripped off by letting agents who not only charge huge commissions for finding a tenant but also huge renewal fees simply for keeping the tenant in the property" without providing any evidence of that claim.
Anecdote , stereotype and cliché might win business from gullible amateur landlords but as evidenced by the lack of complaint to all of the "Whinge here" organisations what Mr Monjack is using as a disturbance selling technique is not robust enough to stand up in this court.
One of the problems with the administration fees is the huge disparity between the fees different agents charge (in my area of Essex these fees range from £150 - £600!). This is an important revenue stream for the majority of agents and needs to be protected otherwise Landlord's will bear the brunt or agents will take the loss. The other option (which is happening in Scotland) is that rents will be increased. If a rent goes up by £50 a month to offset the lack of administration fee that will work out substantially higher than an initial admin fee! Well done Shelter you have succeeded in driving rents up North of the Border - I am quite certain that was not your intention but it will happen in England too. Agents (me included) we need to steady our own ship and not charge silly amounts for these admin fees (with added hidden costs), be transparent and reasonable and we can fight this onslaught from Shelter and keep the legal right to charge reasonable admin fees.
This article just turned into an advert for HTC! Shame on you EAT. Nothing useful in it whatsoever. I can't wait to see the mayhem caused when tenants have to make no financial commitment to their application whastoever and can just mess us around and then pull out - what joy! and what loss to the landlord???? Shelter you are off your rocker try helping some homeless people! Oh and we are not a necessary 'evil' Mr Monjack we are by and large a professional network of good quality facilitators that take on a lot of work that landlords are simply unequipped to deal with. I shudder to think the state the PRS would be in without us. Well done to every professional letting agent for putting up with this current witch hunt and getting on with the job which the vast majority of us do well.
HTC uses a Panel of agents with fees as low as 4%...
Low fees = bad service!
Multi listing on low fees = Agents showing all their higher fee properties well before these ones. The net result is poor service, lower rentals achieved and all round unhappy landlords. I agree with both previous comments that this should be in the right hand side of the page under advertisements.
Should this not be reclassified as an advertorial for HTC? Also that was a very flippant remark from a lawyer stating that Agents get back handers from contractors.............. this is not 1980 Sir, please wake up!!!
Shelter got its own way here in Scotland due the fact that the Scottish Government are so weak and pathetic. They try to distance themselves from Westminster by passing these stupid one sided laws. Fatty Salmond doesn't have a clue.