Bastard Landlords Part II

[SavageHoutkop]

It's very common to be charged for this - there is no regulation that is mandatory for what agencies charge people. The highest charge for 'arranging' the tenancy was £175 per person in a two bedroom flat. Raking it in, absolute tossers. When you factor in the two months rent for deposit, the currently retained deposit in the current place, the costs to move furniture and belongings and the months rent in advance....

I hate the extortionate fees and I've come across many agents who are scum of the earth.

I'm sure we had to pay a fee to our agency this time round, although it wasn't stated that it was for 'credit scoring'.
Ah, found it:

2. Pay TRACC fee to reserve your home. When you find a home you want, fill out our TRACC form and pay the fee. TRACC stands for: Tenancy agreement
References – these may include both a credit check and personal references
Application fee – to reserve the property
Check-in – see below
Check-out – see below.

Paying the TRACC fee reserves the property for you and takes it off the market. The fee is 25% of the monthly rent with a minimum of £200 and a maximum of £500 + VAT.

 

[User169]

In Holland, we (as renter) had to pay all of the agent's fees up-front: one month's rent + 1 month rent deposit.

(It's the same when you buy - buyer pays the estate agent's fees.)

Having said that, once you're in, it's pretty difficult for a landlord to boot you out. I think they have to apply for a court order and there are a limited number of circumstances in which a judge will give such an order.

Rule of thumb, so I'm told, is that a property loses a third of its value once tenanted since you'll most likely need to sell it with the tenants. Tends to discourage the BTL amateurs I guess.

 

[theclaud]

I'm not sure that it's legal for agencies to charge prospective tenants for credit scoring. And, no, the agency I use doesn't do it.

Interesting. I might look in to this when I have time. The big agency round here uses a company called Homelet, which sells them a "reference" package that includes credit scoring. This is what they claim to do with the most comprehensive of their "referencing" packages:



As well as checking information about the tenant, and speaking to the people who know them, we also offer a unique guarantee: We’re so confident in the level of our checks that we’ll guarantee to remove the tenant from your property if they fail to pay the rent.

• We’ll check for any adverse credit history such as, bankruptcy, CCJs and court decrees
• We’ll check if there’s any previous names and addresses which they haven’t disclosed
• We’ll check whether there’s any undisclosed credit history which is linked to their current and most recent homes
• We’ll check that the banking details provided are for a genuine bank account
• We conduct a check against HomeLet’s own Default Database – this may indicate whether your tenant has not been able to pay their rent in the past
• We conduct a Financial Sanctions check, to make sure that your tenant isn’t registered to any of the Government’s Asset Freezing lists - because this could mean they’re unable to pay their rent in the future
• We’ll speak to the tenant’s previous Landlord or Managing Agent to ask them for a reference
• We’ll also speak to their employer to check the tenant is being paid what they’ve told us and that there is no reason their employment will be terminated any time soon
• On our Optimum reference we are also able to reference Overseas Guarantors

 

[stowie]

It's very common to be charged for this - there is no regulation that is mandatory for what agencies charge people. The highest charge for 'arranging' the tenancy was £175 per person in a two bedroom flat. Raking it in, absolute tossers. When you factor in the two months rent for deposit, the currently retained deposit in the current place, the costs to move furniture and belongings and the months rent in advance....

I hate the extortionate fees and I've come across many agents who are scum of the earth.

As a tenant I used to have the usual argument about renewing tenancy agreement - I knew after 6 months you can go onto a standard agreement, yet agencies will try to keep you on 6 month agreements to earn more money. One directly lied about the landlord wanting to continue on 6 month agreements only, and wasn't even embarrassed when I went in with the Landlord to explain that he didn't (Landlord was friend of a friend and was incensed because he had been told that we only wanted 6 month contracts by the agency)

As a landlord I had a string of super tenants followed by a nightmare one who ended up owing about £1k in rent. It turned out that, although I had paid the money, a credit check hadn't been done (he had been collecting CCJs for years), they hadn't organised payment insurance, and had used the deposit to pay me the rent (without informing me) when he had defaulted. Needless to say, they coughed up when I started talking to a solicitor...

In my experience the agents are often not particularly experienced or motivated, so as a Landlord I used to end up checking everything myself. After a while one wonders why you pay for "full maintenance" when I was able to get plumbers etc. quicker and cheaper than they could and had to double check everything the agent did anyway..

 

[stowie]

Oh, and agents are often a liability on the roads as well. I have learnt to be especially wary of men wearing too much hair-gel and a shiny suit whilst driving a Mini-one or BMW 1 series with gaudy writing all over it.

I had one "harass" me on my cycle the other day to get past and wait at the lights 5 seconds earlier than if he hadn't been a complete tw@t. I pointed out that it may not be the best idea to act like a loon in a car with his employers details emblazoned on every panel. If I was a landlord now I would be somewhat concerned that my house was in the hands of someone who couldn't work even this out before being told.

 

[Flying Dodo]

Depending upon which credit reference firm a letting agency is signed up with, and how many credit checks they run a year, the actual cost of running a basic credit check will be between £2.50 and £25.

 

[goo_mason]

Oh, and agents are often a liability on the roads as well. I have learnt to be especially wary of men wearing too much hair-gel and a shiny suit whilst driving a Mini-one or BMW 1 series with gaudy writing all over it.

I had one "harass" me on my cycle the other day to get past and wait at the lights 5 seconds earlier than if he hadn't been a complete tw@t. I pointed out that it may not be the best idea to act like a loon in a car with his employers details emblazoned on every panel. If I was a landlord now I would be somewhat concerned that my house was in the hands of someone who couldn't work even this out before being told.

The employers usually don't care - I reported an employee of an Edinburgh agency who was weaving about all over the road whilst using his mobile when driving one of the company-liveried VW Beetles. The letting agency in question makes a big show of its corporate social responsibility all over its website, but didn't even have the decency to respond to me. All mouth and no trousers, really.

That reminds me - time to remind them once again that the low-battery beeps of the two smoke detectors in their flat in our stair are still going every five minutes and have been since the start of the year. I've no idea how the tenants sleep though it & why they haven't bought a couple of Tesco Value batteries to shut the ruddy things up! Sure I could report them to the council for breaching fire safety regulations too...

 

[ASC1951]

That reminds me - time to remind [the agents] once again that the low-battery beeps of the two smoke detectors in their flat in our stair are still going every five minutes and have been since the start of the year. I've no idea how the tenants sleep though it & why they haven't bought a couple of Tesco Value batteries to shut the ruddy things up!

Because they are Bastard Tenants. No doubt they expect the landlord to clean their windows and empty their bins for them, too.

 

[User482]

Because they are Bastard Tenants. No doubt they expect the landlord to clean their windows and empty their bins for them, too.

I suspect that the Bastard Landlord should've fitted mains-wired smoke alarms.

 

[wiggydiggy]

I suspect that the Bastard Landlord should've fitted mains-wired smoke alarms.

Mains wired ones (should) still have a backup battery which beeps when low

 

[straas]

I have to rent out a place for about a year as I'm temporarily relocating and have had to go through all this hassle, they wanted two credit checks done and then claimed my partner would automatically fail because she's transferring jobs.

So then they wanted me to have a guarantor despite me owning my own house and having an income (which they claimed wasn't an actual income because I don't do a 9-5 job?!?!?!)

Managed to tell them to piss off with the referencing and just paid 6 months up front to shut them up.


I've never found giving someone money to be so difficult before!

 

[ASC1951]

I suspect that the Bastard Landlord should've fitted mains-wired smoke alarms.

Not unless it's an HMO, I believe.

Many tenants seem to think they have no legal or moral responsibility whatsoever for the property or its fittings, just for their own possessions. Wrong on both counts.

 

[ttcycle]

Not unless it's an HMO, I believe.

Many tenants seem to think they have no legal or moral responsibility whatsoever for the property or its fittings, just for their own possessions. Wrong on both counts.

Now for some balance,

many landlords like to charge through the nose for fair wear and tear--often double the costs of what the original fitting was. For scuffing?

Or how about the charging someone for cleaning (which the deposit company clarified was not allowed as that's classed as fair wear and tear) when I had cleaned the flat out the whole week before I was due to move out - spotless and I have very anally high standards!

 

[ASC1951]

Now for some balance ...

That was what I was supplying: the thread is "Bastard Landlords" and half the posts seem to be from people who have had ill-tempered disputes with everyone they have ever paid rent to. Never their fault, of course...

[Fair wear and tear is for the landlord to pay, irrespective of the cost. That includes paint scuffs and minor carpet marks.]

 

[MacB]

Now for some balance,

many landlords like to charge through the nose for fair wear and tear--often double the costs of what the original fitting was. For scuffing?

Or how about the charging someone for cleaning (which the deposit company clarified was not allowed as that's classed as fair wear and tear) when I had cleaned the flat out the whole week before I was due to move out - spotless and I have very anally high standards!

that reminds me of my Mum, paid for a professional cleaning company when she was moving house, and then spent the day before cleaning the house so that the cleaners didn't find it dirty