landlordsurrey Posted June 3, 2011 Report Share Posted June 3, 2011 I am a landlord and 2 years ago an agent at Woking, Surrey found me a tenant. The last two years I had the agent under a full management contract and clearly made quite a lot of money from me. Now I want to go into a 3rd year contract with the tennat and asked the agent that I don't require their services any more. They are now requesting that I pay them 6% for having found me a tenant more than two years ago!! I find this totally unreasonable. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do? I would like to renew the contract with my tenant privately. Any advise or help will be most welcome!! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melboy Posted June 4, 2011 Report Share Posted June 4, 2011 It will be in your contract....terms and conditions....the tenant belongs to the LA if they sourced and found that tenant on your behalf for your rental property. It is standard practice for an LA to require a buy-out penalty from you as the landlord should you decide you don't want their services anymore and you want to keep the existing tenant. Check your contract and see what is laid down by way of tenant exit conditions from them. Mel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Fox Posted June 4, 2011 Report Share Posted June 4, 2011 Hi, Firstly, check the T&C's that you signed up to. In any event, if there is a clause stating that a commission is payable, it may not be enforceable, check out this recent report regarding commission on sales following a recent case against Foxtons http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/mon...cle7037347.ece Hope this helps, feel free to contact me for a chat. Rob Commercial Management & Property Consultant, Wakefield, West Yorkshire Please visit my website, read the property blog & leave a comment; www.walkerfox.co.uk/blog E: rob@walkerfox.co.uk M: 07960 753550 T: @walkerfox S: Walkerfox] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melboy Posted June 5, 2011 Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 Foxton's case.......... 1. They were charging full renewal fees on any contract extension which was totally unecessary with AST'S. Hence that court case which they lost. 2. The second court case was the charge of 2.5% if the rented property was sold privately by the Landlord to a tenant that was on their books and that tenant was sourced and found by them for the landlord. This too was regarded as an unacceptable clause and was to be removed as a condition of letting a property Landlordsurrey is querying something different to the above.....yes, if your LA has been charging you for contract renewals every 6 or 12 months then they are not permitted to do this and showing them the Foxton's case should convince them of their error and they should refund the money to you for doing so. I would suggest that the LA would be quite correct to ask for a payment if a landlord breaks a contract containing the LA's sourced tenant, This is an industry standard clause in most letting contracts.......but of course we don't know if surrylandlord has this clause in his contract. The other thing to consider is that the tenant may not want to lose the protection of a managing LA and have to deal with a landlord on a private basis. Mel. Rob.......A word of caution......your advertising will be removed from the forum by the Mods. so may I suggest to you before they do this is to scale it down to just an email link for anyone wishing to contact you for any reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landlordsurrey Posted June 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 Thank you all for the very good information. Actually the Terms of Reference that I have signed with the agent are in Oct 2008 which is a period of a different tennant. For the tennant that I have the last two years I don't have an agreement signed with the agent, only email communication. Actually digging a bit further I found out that they are charging me 100GBP for renewal, even if in the original ToR I have signed says that there will be no administration charge for renewal. Last year I paid them 100GBP. It seems that my case is quite similar to Foxton's case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melboy Posted June 5, 2011 Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 If your LA has failed to give you or to ensure you have a copy of the written AST contract containing terms and conditions then they are very lax in their business approach and therefore you have no case to answer to regarding pulling out of their services. What about deposits though? who is managing this? If your LA has it then I would suggest that on pulling out of any deal you have you will probably lose it to the LA as fee's.... because no matter who hold the tenant's deposit the landlord is ultimately responsible for it's return to the tenant. This is another Law Court's decision from a while ago. Mel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Fox Posted June 5, 2011 Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 Mel, Thanks for the comments regarding the signature, I'll just leave it off in future and make sure my profile is fully completed. Rob If your LA has failed to give you or to ensure you have a copy of the written AST contract containing terms and conditions then they are very lax in their business approach and therefore you have no case to answer to regarding pulling out of their services. What about deposits though? who is managing this? If your LA has it then I would suggest that on pulling out of any deal you have you will probably lose it to the LA as fee's.... because no matter who hold the tenant's deposit the landlord is ultimately responsible for it's return to the tenant. This is another Law Court's decision from a while ago. Mel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landlordsurrey Posted June 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 Thank you Mel, the agent is currently managing the deposit as they are the full managers of the property until July 2011. You make a very good comment that they might take the money from there, even if I believe that this is not the intent of the tenant deposit (to protect the agent, but rather to protect the landlord from the tenant). I wrote to the Office of Fair Trading asking some direction as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Fox Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 The Agent has absolutely no right to deduct monies they allege that you owe from the Tenants deposit. The Tenants deposit is THEIR money which is why the onus is normally on the LL to prove that the cost of repairs etc. can be offset against the deposit. IF the Agent does deduct from the depoist, call the Police and report a theft. Thank you Mel, the agent is currently managing the deposit as they are the full managers of the property until July 2011. You make a very good comment that they might take the money from there, even if I believe that this is not the intent of the tenant deposit (to protect the agent, but rather to protect the landlord from the tenant). I wrote to the Office of Fair Trading asking some direction as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grampa Posted June 7, 2011 Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 It wouldn't surprise me if the agent took any fees from the deposit but as the deposit is legally the tenantsI think the courts would take a very dim view of that and I wouldn't like to be sitting in their seat in front of a judge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trenners Posted June 7, 2011 Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 Hi landlordsurrey, Lots of good advice from knowledgeable landlords on this topic ....... I would add that, if it were me, I would do the fair thing and pay the LA a "negotiated fee" to terminate the agreement with them so that I could take control back of the property. Why? Well you entered into a contract with them to source a tenant and manage your property and, from what I can tell, they have done a pretty good job on your behalf. So ... you have no CAUSE to terminate other than you want to save yourself the management charges moving forward (which is quite reasonable in these times of austerity). However ... the LA is not a registered charity and also has a business to run! I don't agree with the LA "helping himself" to the tenants deposit ... but I also do not agree with you simply taking a LA sourced tenant and wandering into the sunset without recompensing the LA. My advice - meet with the LA owner / director, agree a fee / compromise, take control of the property and the deposit yourself. Everyone should then be happy ... and you will be able to go back to the agent in the future if your circumstances change. Good Luck Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landlordsurrey Posted June 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 Thank you all! You have been very helpful. After talking to the LA we reached an agreement, actually they aknowledged that I was a very good client for a long time and could get new business from me going forward and agreed to terminate their contract. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danjb1976 Posted June 8, 2011 Report Share Posted June 8, 2011 hello, I am new to this forum and indeed new to the landlord era! I have let out my one and only property for nearly 4 years now and have always kept on the right side of the law in regards to letting agents fees (ie management, tenant sourcing, referencing etc) and paying taxes etc. Of late I have had more and more issues with my letting agent ranging from no responses to email/phone contact, not completing jobs on time etc and to be honest rude messages as well. All this has led tome deciding to terminate the management agreement with my lettting agent and look at other options which include going to another agent or managing myself (tenant is happy with this..) I have had to spend the last 2 weeks emailing + phoning them before I finally got a response (rude again). what I am worried about is two things: will LA pay the last payment in full to me or decide to deduct 'debatable' fees? will the LA decide to charge a 'fee' for the tenant staying on and being under my own management? I did pay a large fee to LA when they sourced this tenant when they first moved, think it was equivalent to 2 weeks rent + sourcing and referencing fees (I have now found out that I was substantially overcharged for this service!!), and they state the following on their website to which was never discussed with me and I cannot see in any of the contracts: 'In the event of tenants introduced by Capitol Management extending or renewing the tenancy agreement by way of negotiating with the landlord, his agent or Capitol Management commision is payable as per point 1 & 2 in Other Services'. they state in points 1 + 2 -' Fee - The equivalent of One months rent ( 2 weeks if full management)' for letting service and 10% of monthly rent. Has anyone got views that can help? will I have to pay? Have asked LA 3 times to confirm last payment date and how much etc and still no costs have been mentioned! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melboy Posted June 9, 2011 Report Share Posted June 9, 2011 hello, I am new to this forum and indeed new to the landlord era! I have let out my one and only property for nearly 4 years now and have always kept on the right side of the law in regards to letting agents fees (ie management, tenant sourcing, referencing etc) and paying taxes etc. Of late I have had more and more issues with my letting agent ranging from no responses to email/phone contact, not completing jobs on time etc and to be honest rude messages as well. All this has led tome deciding to terminate the management agreement with my lettting agent and look at other options which include going to another agent or managing myself (tenant is happy with this..) I have had to spend the last 2 weeks emailing + phoning them before I finally got a response (rude again). what I am worried about is two things: will LA pay the last payment in full to me or decide to deduct 'debatable' fees? will the LA decide to charge a 'fee' for the tenant staying on and being under my own management? I did pay a large fee to LA when they sourced this tenant when they first moved, think it was equivalent to 2 weeks rent + sourcing and referencing fees (I have now found out that I was substantially overcharged for this service!!), and they state the following on their website to which was never discussed with me and I cannot see in any of the contracts: 'In the event of tenants introduced by Capitol Management extending or renewing the tenancy agreement by way of negotiating with the landlord, his agent or Capitol Management commision is payable as per point 1 & 2 in Other Services'. they state in points 1 + 2 -' Fee - The equivalent of One months rent ( 2 weeks if full management)' for letting service and 10% of monthly rent. Has anyone got views that can help? will I have to pay? Have asked LA 3 times to confirm last payment date and how much etc and still no costs have been mentioned! 'In the event of tenants introduced by Capitol Management extending or renewing the tenancy agreement by way of negotiating with the landlord, his agent or Capitol Management commission is payable as per point 1 & 2 in Other Services'. they state in points 1 + 2 -' Fee - The equivalent of One months rent ( 2 weeks if full management)' for letting service and 10% of monthly rent. Your LA is technically breaking the Court ruling on extended fees if what you have written is correct. Show them this article and claim your fees back from them. They will know full well of this court case and they are probably hoping that landlord's have not! http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/article6685503.ece Mel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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