Agent wants to let my property

[pdavidson]

Hi,

Been advertising for a few days now and had a call from a lady wanting to rent my house. After speaking with her it turns out she is a letting agent in this area and has a tenant waiting for a property like mine. She seems to be in a hurry and says she has the "perfect" tenant. The perspective tenant works for the council and can move in now. I've arranged to meet them at the property later this evening. After all the stories I've heard I'm a little dubious about this whole situation.

The letting agent says she will do the credit checks and get me all the details I need from the tenant ( copy of passport etc ) and also let me use my own AST.

What would you do?

Forgot to add: anything I should be aware of?

[Mortitia]

I would be very dubious.

I think I'd start by checking out the letting agent. Is she ARLA or NAEA registered, does she have a proper office - I'd go there and take a look.

Ask yourself why you should trust and complete stranger who contacts you just because she says she it a letting agent.

Incidently council workers may not be such a good bet as tenants since there are to be many local government types made redundant.

Get back to us with the results.

Mortitia

[Melboy]

What Mortitia said................

...........and check and check again.........trust no cold caller.

Mel.

[Selkirk]

They're just touting for business, it's the oldest one in the book (lettings agents book).

cheers

Selkirk

[the_storyteller]

Lettings Agents are not regulated. Anyone can set up as an agent and before long can have lots of YOUR money passing through their account.

If you're going to use an agent, use an ARLA one - they have checks on their account have to meet basic standards.

[pdavidson]

Ok, I met with the LA and the "perfect tenant (PT)". The LA turned up at the house first and we had a chat. This wasn't the original LA I originally spoke to. She was busy, apparently. I asked some simple questions which he had no answers to. Things like "what happens now?". He said I should have been told. Oh well! The PT arrived and had a good look round. She seemed very bullish but maybe it was the fact that she loved the property and really wanted it. We all talked in the kitchen and she asked if she could have my number if she had more questions. My immediate thought was even though the LA told me she wanted to stay with them for security reasons, that may not be the case. She ( PT ) had another look round and went back upstairs. The LA said I could just go to her and bypass them. I said I wouldn't contact her. The LA asked if I wanted to go ahead. I said I would need to think about it if there was any paperwork to fill in. I don't sign anything there and then. He pressed harder saying "what if she had cash with her now". I said I would have to look at their contract, which he'd just handed me. We all left. The PT was or seemed over the moon. I got home and immediately got a phone call. It was the PT. She wanted to know if there was any movement on the rent. I said no purely because it was cheap considering the current market and I now had a letting fee to pay. The PT said she didn't want to go through the LA. So I said if she could sort out her agreement with the LA and everything was above board I would reconsider. The PT hadn't actually signed anything with the LA and neither had I. The PT called back a day later and we did a deal. To my mind I didn't do anything wrong because I stuck to my word. The LA originally called me. I don't think I owe them anything.

One of the little nuggets I've since got out of this is on a few of the PT's payslips it indicates payments for a court order. I asked her about this and apparently because she has moved twice in the last 36 months she arranged for the council to take the catchup payments directly from her wages. She does work for the council and apparently its the way the council's payroll system works. Her credit checks came back squeaky clean.

I'll see what happens!

[Mortitia]

Phil this is the first step on a long learning curve and I wish you well ............................

I don't buy the court order being 'catch up' payments. Did you do your own credit checks or let the agent do them?

Just one small thing - when I use an agent I never give any viewer my own phone number. Keeping that distance between landlord and viewer is what you get by using a good agent. You don't have to let to the first person that views

And another - when tenants look for somewhere new I am often approached by phone or email for a landlord reference which 9 times out of 10 consists of - 'Did they pay on time' and nothing else. This was the answer to one recently but I did not have time to mention tenants left flat in dirty state, got stroppy when I told them and I took cash off them to remedy situation or 'deposit in dispute' at the DPS. New landlord will not be aware of this.

My agent gets written informative text from the actual landlord and empoyer and forwards the refs to me to keep. This is a far superior service to those brief phonecalls by someone with a bare knowledge of English - for the same price.

I'm going slightly off the subject here but to those thinking of using an agent for tenant finding - check exactly how the referencing is done and what you are to be presented with. Any idiot can get a £35 credit check done on the internet which tells you very little you could not have found out yourself. It is the background stuff that informs you into making a good decision on a tenant.

Mortitia