Much is written about the scams and tricks perpetrated by rogue estate agents. But what about that new sub-species, the letting agent? Ten years ago you barely saw a letting agent on the high street. Estate agents refused to deal with rental properties, while letting agents were generally found down side streets and up scruffy stairwells. And no matter how low-rent they looked, they always tried to stiff you with the highest rent possible. Or so I thought.
Now that estate agents are knee-deep in the letting business, there's a whole new set of tricks being pulled on their mostly naive and unsuspecting young customers. Half of every window display at estate agents that I see is now given over to flats and houses to let, the flip-side of the buy-to-let boom as amateur landlords struggle to find tenants. The estate agent charges the landlord, typically, 12-15% of the monthly rent to man age the property plus a separate fee for finding the tenant. Those fees are preposterous enough. But the agents are also deceiving tenants out of huge amounts of cash with myriad charges and fees that verge on the criminal.
Why, for example, is it now standard practice among letting agents to demand a deposit worth six weeks' or even eight weeks' rent? Ten years ago the standard rate was four weeks. What extra work are the agents doing today or what extra protection do they need to demand this extra money? Why do agents now charge an initial "admin fee" to tenants - often £100 per head - on top of the charges they make to landlords? Such charges were almost non-existent a decade ago.
The answer is that agents simply make up these charges as they go along, hoping that the mainly young clientele they encounter think they have no choice but to pay up. These vulnerable young people, often laden down with student debt, are hit with a load of tripe about "inventory fees" "contract charges" "vetting costs" and so on. These are completely spurious items which, if they have any basis in fact (and the vast majority do not) should fall on the landlord, not the tenant. Jobs & Money is interested in finding out more about the letting trade. If you are a tenant, email us with details of any additional charges you've faced, and if you are a landlord, tell us if the agent's service has matched the 15% fee.
· Contact us at jobs.and.money@theguardian.com