Commons to debate letting fees ban

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Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, and co-founder of Hunters Estate Agency has called for a debate on the lettings fees ban in the House of Commons this morning.

The Fees ban was announced in last Autumns Statement and is expected to come into force in the next year, but as yet without a firm date.

This has lead to much commentary indicating this will only result in costs incurred by agents having to be recovered by increasing monthly rental amounts so the tenant will not be any better off.

The proposed bill also includes capping security deposits at one month’s rent and holding deposits at one week’s rent. Again the cap on security deposit amounts may adversely affect tenants finding properties that will allow pets that are more likely to cause damage or tenants with less than perfect payment histories.

During the consultation period for the bill the Housing Minister, via MoneySavingExpert.com, received over 4,700 public responses to a request for views specifically on:

• Their experiences of letting agent fees
• Which fees they consider fair or unfair
• How they feel about the prospect of fees being transferred from tenants to landlords when a ban is introduced
• If tenants take varying tenant fees into account when looking for a rental property
• Would the public welcome the licensing of agents and landlords

The response to these views has been collated to be used in the debate which can be viewed on Parliament TV.

David Cox, chief executive of ARLA Propertymark, has said the fees ban will cause “unprecedented damage to the rental sector”and he reported that “independent analysis commissioned by ARLA Propertymark, following the UK government’s announcement of its own ban, revealed that if a full ban was introduced, rents will increase by £103 per year which will only serve to financially punish long term tenants.

“In our submission, ARLA is calling for fees associated with referencing to be left out of any ban. Right to Rent checks will soon be a service that agents in Wales will be required to undertake by law so it is only right that agents should be able to recover the associated costs, given the time and resources needed to carry out such checks.”

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