A Cardiff lettings agent claims to have become the first in Wales to stop charging fees to new and existing tenants.
CPS Homes has made the move one month ahead of the Welsh Government’s nationwide ban coming into force on September 1.
“We’ve known about the ban for a long time so we’ve had plenty of time to prepare and adapt our business model. A month is neither here nor there, so we’ve decided to take the bull by the horns and allow tenants to keep their money in their pocket a little sooner than previously expected” says Nikki Lewis, CPS director of operations.
CPS Homes says it’s also encouraging its landlords to consider allowing tenants to move into properties with lower deposits than the norm.
“Landlords typically want the equivalent of a month’s rent as a deposit in order to guard against potential unpaid rent, cleaning or damages” continues Lewis, “but our experience shows that the average deposit deduction comes nowhere close to that amount.
“There a lot of available properties in Cardiff at the moment – more than there are tenants looking – so in order to encourage interest in their property rather than anything else on the market, we’ve been suggesting to our landlords that they may wish to consider lowering the required deposit.
“We’ve seen the number of properties let rise by 23 per cent in the six months we’ve been pedalling this initiative, so it’s certainly had the desired effect and we’ve had a lot of happy clients and tenants as a result.”
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Its not about being generous to Tenants, its Pure Business advantage. !
Because in England, Agents were seeing a slowing down of Tenants moving or signing agreements in the month before the ban took effect - choosing to wait until the legislative date and then pay None.
CPS Homes are likely to clean-up in the Market ahead of the ban.
LL don't really need a deposit PROVIDING they can obtain RGI on the tenants or a guarantor.
Trouble is RGI is very hard for the average tenant or guarantor to qualify for.
This would be the case especially in Cardiff.
Therein lies the problem.
It is extremely risky taking on a tenant without RGI even more so as the deposit amount allowed is so minimal.
But even so no LL would have taken more than 2 month's deposit as it would have created a Premium Tenancy and NO LL would have wanted that.
I personally am very interested in these deposit insurance schemes with some of them giving up to 12 weeks of cover.
Just not exactly sure how they work and how effective they are.
But 13 weeks cover easily beats current allowable deposit amounts.
I suppose the proof of the pudding is whether claims are successfully met.
What would happen in instances where the properties are damaged and the costs need be claimed from the deposit? RGI wouldnt cover this?
This is not factually correct, CanDo Lettings has been operating in Cardiff for 14 years and has never taken fees from tenants.
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