Mar

EXCLUSIVE: What’s really happening on the ground following the tenant fees ban

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Letting agents gather to tell LandlordZONE why the fees ban is, as predicted, pushing up rents as one agent reveals losing £270,000 since act became law.

Government ministers who last
year rejected landlord and letting agent claims that the tenant fees ban would simply
force up rents should have been at a gathering at the LandlordZONE offices last
week.

We invited ten letting
agents to take their business pulses, and many were candid about out how much
they had lost following the ban, which went live in England on June 1^st
last year, and how the money was being recouped.

Many said they had
experienced lower revenues including a single-branch agent who had lost between
£25,000 and £30,000 since the fees ban became law, while a large multi-branch
agency had lost £270,000.

Only one agency said they
had increased their fees to landlords to make up the shortfall; the rest said
they had either agreed with them to raise rents and/or cut their business
costs.

The agents also revealed how
much they charge landlords, ranging from 5% to 10% for let only, while three
charged 5% for fully managed and two charged 13%.

Several said doing business was
getting more difficult as landlords and the law required them to do more and
more work, while their fees remained static.

The fees ban is also bad
news for renters with pets, the agents said. Now that the rental deposit cannot
be larger than five weeks’ rent, the traditional ‘pet deposit’ many
animal-loving tenants paid in the past is no longer legal.

“I am more wary of pets now because, if they do cause damage to a property, then the new capped deposit won’t be enough to cover the cost of repairing the damage,” said one agent.

Find out more about the tenant fees ban.

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