Landlords and tenants should vote with their feet on agents

Tenants are not the only victims of excessive letting agents fees and poor service, says Smartlandlord.co.uk.

Keshav Thukaram, managing director of Smartlandlord.co.uk, commented on harsh criticism of letting agents and managing agents contained in the report ‘Let Down', published by the Citizens Advice Bureau today: "Tenants are not the only victims of rogue elements in the unregulated letting and managing agent sector. For years, landlords too have paid through the nose for excessive and often unnecessary fees charged by some for poor and in some case downright negligent service. There are more landlords in the UK than ever before, as people who can't sell their properties try to rent them out."

"Full, mandatory and independently-led regulation of letting and managing agents is long overdue. The Government's response to the Rugg Review of the Private Rented Sector last week offered hopeful signs that time is up for cowboy letting and managing agents ripping consumers off."

"In an economic environment like this one - where landlords face stagnant or falling rents, there's a rapidly growing number of landlords who can't afford to sit back and let their investments be managed by other people. They need to seize control of their property investments if they want to optimise their returns. Encouragingly, thousands have already voted with their feet by using transparent and money-saving alternatives such as Smartlandlord.co.uk."

58% of the 3.2 million homes in UK's private sector, are managed by lettings agents - with landlords paying substantial fees for services they could buy for far less elsewhere. Lettings agents will typically charge 12% of rent, year-in, year-out, just to market a property to prospective tenants. This means landlords are paying lettings agents £1,550 a year for a service available for just £100 on the web. Lettings agents will also charge up to £360 plus tax to produce a tenancy agreement contract - which can be downloaded for free on the internet. Across the country, £3.0 billion is spent on lettings agents every year.

Keshav Thukaram, managing director of Smartlandlord.co.uk, said: "There are more landlords in the UK than ever before, as people who can't sell their properties try to rent them out. Many lack the in-depth knowledge required to run a successful rental portfolio, which makes them an easy target for unscrupulous rogue letting agents. They're being taken to the cleaners by a number of lettings agents who are milking them for everything they're worth and who are giving the sector as a whole a bad name."

"In an economic environment like this one - where landlords face stagnant or falling rents, there's a rapidly growing number of landlords who can't afford to sit back and let their investments be managed by other people. They need to seize control of their property investments if they want to optimise their returns."

Over 20 months, the length of an average tenancy, the average landlord spends £2,685 on letting and managing agent fees for every property - or £5,681 across his or her average portfolio.