A new survey claims that 42 per cent of private sector tenants are unhappy with paying letting agents’ fees, despite the ban likely to come into effect in 2019.
Research conducted by online lettings platform HomeRenter suggests that 70 per cent of tenants would prefer to rent directly from a landlord rather than through an agent.
The platform also claims that 87 per cent of landlords would be happier renting directly to their tenants, rather than via an agent.
Additionally, the survey apparently showed that 52 per cent of landlords cited high fees and poor service from agents as a problem for them.
The figures appear to contradict those released recently by the National Landlords Association, which has said some 61 per cent of privately rented properties were handled by lettings agencies - with the figure rising.
The HomeRenter survey claims that 81 per cent of tenants and 88 per cent of landlords expressed a desire to be able to rate and review their counterpart on an Airbnb/TripAdvisor style platform.
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Pretty pointless question asking a tenant if they want to pay fees ? If I was a tenant I think I’d say no !
But they don’t have to run a business, pay rent, pay staff etc etc etc etc....
So many landlords do not have the slightest idea of the responsibilities required of them, nor the extremely high levels of customer service expected by tenants these days. Take the agents out of the equation and I think tenants would be voting differently in that poll.
"Mr Hill (our managing director) would you like to pay £400 for us to be able to fully reference, background check and complete admin plus a further £125 per tenant thereafter as well as covering the cost of our time processing every single application? This allows us to be able to see if you're the best fit for the property and a suitable tenant for the landlord. It allows us to see your credit history, a bit about how others see you and how you were in your previous tenancy as well as indicate to us whether you have the right to rent, whether you've provided correct details and been honest in your application.
Now, if you're not credit worthy nor have positive references and cannot afford the refund, have a history of trashing the properties you live in at the end of tenancy and fail to provide legitimate ID, these funds will be non refundable because you would have chosen to go ahead knowing its unlikely you'd pass tenant screening.
Are you happy to proceed on the above basis?"
Let's just abolish fees and not screen tenants stringently, opening ourselves up to claims of negligence at our expense and the putting unsuitable tenants into properties at the expense of our landlord clients. It won't be long before landlords leave the PRS and the cost of rents will soar as landlord foot the bill for referencing every single tenant who show interest in the property. Do we expect landlords to lose months of rent to cover agent referencing fees?
Or is it that we expect landlords to sack their agents to manage their properties themselves...
Seriously, though, with all that legislation to keep on top of, I can imagine the life of Self-Managing landlords will get a lot harder. Tenants will be the victim of the suffering as the extra costs incurred by landlords will be reflected in the rent tenants are forced to pay. A single £400 payment will be far better for a tenant than having to pay an extra £40 a month in rent for the amount of time they're a tenant (it'd take 10 months to cover the cost hut if the tenant is in the property for 10 years, they'll have paid more than 4grand extra in rent just because some idiot decided to ban tenant referencing fees without considering the impact it'll have on the overall sector.
If 87% of landlords would rather rent directly to their tenants WHY DON’T THEY? They are not forced to use letting agents. Half of them haven’t got a clue and legislation will be ignored left, right and centre!
And many more landlords just do not want the problem and just money in their bank on time to cover rent due. No reference fee to agents will be a disaster for the whole of the PRS.
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