Agency moves off the High Street to offset fees ban income cut

An agency in the north east of England is moving its HQ off the High Street and into an office block in order to help mitigate income loss caused by the fees ban coming into effect on June 1.

Daniel Craig Residential, based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, has more than 1,000 properties on its books across Tyne and Wear and beyond..

“We are not a traditional agency; we own a lot of property ourselves and we work very closely with investors, specialising in portfolio development and management. This means we are not as exposed to the tenant fee ban as other agencies” says Daniel Gibson, who runs the company.

“We are also set to move offices from our local high street to a new office block and the money we are saving by doing that will off-set some of what we are set to lose” he adds. 

“But we appreciate that not every letting company – particularly those with only one or a few properties – will be able to find a way of absorbing these costs and that means landlords will either see their fees dramatically increased or have to opt to self-manage their properties.

“We are hopefully going to be able to show people a more cost effective way of managing their property portfolio.”

Gibson says he predicts the new law will hit the private rental sector and “a number of landlords are already putting their properties up for sale because it is no longer viable to have them.”

He concludes: “This new Act means that the letting charges which would normally be split between the tenant and the landlord now have to be completely paid by the landlord which could be a huge blow for the private rental market.”