Government autumn statement abolishing

Abolishing salary sacrifice

Giving a private house 7 million quid

Ridiculous

 

Abolishing Agent letting fees! Ridiculous???
Cherry picking policy decisions to reinforce your own political agenda?

Not dis-similar to BBC screaming 'National Debt to increase' when, for example Japan's is far higher and most people do not understand that country debt is different from personal debt. Most advamced countries run deficits. UK has had a national debt for over 300 years!!

Nor is it dis-similar to me posting those examples to re-inforce MY views re BBC impartiality (before someone else points that out)

 

What's wrong with a letting agent charging a customer for using its service?

Another industry that they are trying ruin

 

Isn't the landlord the customer though?

 

Yes!

 

Clearly not

 

They do charge their customer the landlord then charge the tenant which Is clearly not right.

 

Bloody H*ell - we agree. Letting fees were OK at first when a reasonable fee was charged to cover admin etc + a modest profit but over time these have escalated to the point of being ridiculous and in some cases a £500 non-refundable deposit is charged on top.

Under the existing system, there is also less incentive for landlords/letting agencies to offer long term rentals , since the agencies get the fees every time the property is let to new tenants. I read that they offer...'incentives' to landlords to keep the rental periods shorter. Not sure if/how that works.

Not sure that charging the tenants AND the landlords is much different to the Sky busuness model though. They charge viewers high monthly rental fees AND subject them to endless adverts for which advertisers have to pay a substantial sum . No wonder BBC cannot compete - no advertising revenue and no rental revenue except for a paltry £140 per year. That is the main reason I would never subscribe to Sky unless they stopped adverts or gave basic channels ' free to Air' as you get with Free Sat and Free view and then allow people to pay for bespoke pay-per-view packages.

 

The landlord is the customer. If any industry needs some kind of regulation it is the private rents market and while I think this is just an elastoplast to cover a big open wound it is a small step in the right direction.

 

Great to hear about the letting fees thing, it's a right cash cow for them and they can be so dishonest.

I went to view a place a few years ago and I was in a situation where I needed somewhere quick, I went to view one which was relatively new but about £100 a month more than I really felt comfortable paying.

It was nice, but I asked her if I could have a few hours to thing about it, her response was that she had several more viewings that morning and it will definitely be gone by then. Being in a reasonably desperate situation to find a home I said OK - she more or less dragged me to the cashpoint for the £160 non-refundable fee.

After thinking about it, with the money I was earning at the time, I thought I'd better just keep looking for something a bit cheaper for a few days and to be fair I did drop on something almost straight away that was brand new yet more affordable.

It's daft how there is no 'cooling off' period for stuff like this. The irony was I drove past the original place at least 3 weeks later and it still had a to let sign up.

 

To rent a house in town via a 'letting agency'

Months rent - 450
Bond - 400
Fees FROM £100 upwards.

So thats a GRAND.

Almost a months wage for the majority of folk in and around barnsley.

UPFRONT.

 

And that's in Barnsley. Try the same further south, or in Leeds or Sheff. It gets mental pretty quick. Not that the prices in tarn are sane...

 

Supply v demand and low mortgage rates means far too many people are 'property entrepenuers'

 

Often renting out **** holes they can't afford to repair properly.

The worst though are the absentee bulk landlords. They don't give a ****.

A mate of mine had an ex Council house, single glazing, mould on walls, boiler barely worked, always covered in moisture on windows and walls. Two young bairns.

Landlady's response when asked to do something was "I don't need to do anything and I won't be doing anything".

Next door was still a council house. T'old lads next door had lived there for years. New windows, new kitchen, no problems.

It's a ****ing disgrace. The state of some private rented housing that is.

 

I suspect most 'landlords' are shitting themselves over an interest rate rise.

Round here is slowly heading towards mostly private rented. soon as they hit the market they are getting snapped up to be fitted out for rent. Demand is mental for them.

Thankfully my landlord is pretty decent with me.

 

They are both customers of the broker

 

Please stop clouding the issue with fact and talking common sense

 

Say its a 100 quid to apply. Non refundable.

The cost of undertaking the anti money laundering search - outsourced. A quid.
Credit checks. Pence.
Calling an employer. Fiver inc time taken.
Scanning forms in and ****ing em off via and ftp to the outsourced supplier is tje biggest cost. What you reckon? 10 quid.

So all in all... 80 profit.

So yes. Done at cost.

 

The main search they do the Experian Basic credit check used to cost 90p when I did them all the time 5 years ago. I'm sure they haven't increased too much since then. Even the all singing all dancing ones were less than a tenner.