Our estate agent wants to increase their fee from 12.5 to 15% of the rent. We said no thanks and they replied that they didn’t want to lose us.
I’m thinking of moving to self/open rent management of the long term tenants who want to stay. Has anyone left a contract of this sort and if so how easy was the separation? We hold none of the paperwork and have never seen most of it (they refused as not registered with ICO).
Depends on your contract but typically 1 month rent to leave.
Many will say the tenant belongs to them so expect a bit of a fight.
Try to negotiate a deal out, not having paperwork will cause problems, they can’t really withhold it though ie gas safe, eicr, deposit scheme. May need a solicitor on this.
Tell them 10% or you’re off.
Whether or not you are registered with the ICO is not their responsibility. Ask firmly in writing for them to provide either all the paperwork or the contact details of their redress scheme to which you will issue a formal complaint. That should get you what you have paid for.
Then register with the ICO.
The contract has nothing to do with being ICO registered. You would have signed it so you will of course have responsibly kept a copy. Have a read of it. What does it say about ending it?
I agree this has little if anything to do with ICO.
I suspect anybody would have little success holding you to a contract they are not prepared to provide you with a copy of.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. We have digital copies of the contracts (with the estate agent and the tenants). We don’t have copies of the documents showing right to rent, tenants signing they have been given all documents before start of tenancy etc (they would most likely sign them again, they just want to stay).
There are costs to leave in the contract, I think a month’s rent plus VAT, but they are changing the contract not us. We said we wanted to stay on the original terms so I don’t really want to pay the full costs to leave or the increased %. We’ve been with them for 10 years.
Ask them to state which clause they are relying upon in their contract with you that allows the increase of fees.
If it’s not there then you have to agree to it.
The deposit can easily be switched to your own account if you leave them. They have to comply.
Do you have the eicr and the very first gas safe cert (and others since)?
ICO membership has no relevance in relation to denying you copies of documents. (Though you should be a member if you are going to record details of tenants digitally).
Having said all this they will want to keep you and probably will just let things stay as they are if you are kicking up a fuss.
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For clarity, I think Mark means that you don’t have to agree to it.
Yes, poor phrasing of mine, clearer to say they don’t have to agree to it unless it is referenced in contract.
Thanks everyone. I’ll have to read it through carefully but I don’t remember them having a right to unilaterally increase their % charge. They haven’t said anything about a charge and have just said they don’t want to lose us.
We don’t have gas safety check certificates etc but we are charged around £100 each time and are told they have been done. Also, the agency collect the rent and send the remainder to us so I am not sure how the change in management would work.
I don’t want to end the arrangement (and pay their fees for forcing it on me) and I don’t want to accept their new fees either (we have the loveliest tenants who have been with us years and the rent has gone up so their fees have increased with inflation so I don’t think the increase is justified).
I am planning to write to them to say I don’t accept the new fees and they can either continue with our old arrangement or pass all the paperwork on to us so we can self manage in future. I’m just wondering how they might react and any pitfalls to look out for.
I am sure this will sort it. You could do with clarifying the contract conditions in relation to increases and if none then mention this. Let us know the result.
Going forward, if you stay with them I would insist on getting copies of paperwork.
If there is no gas safety check for eg, you are the one that will be held responsible
Ditch them and save a lot of money, they are leeches who serve only themselves with little benefit to the owner.
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Aren’t they supposed to provide gas safety certificates etc. to the tenant, in which case they will have a copy?
Firstly check your contract for the termination of their services terms.
The tenants are yours, you paid the agent to install them, I assume that is the case if they are as all others and charge tenancy reference & set up fees. You are fully entitled to receive copies of all tenancy agreements and to have the bond deposits transferred to your deposit protection service account on termination. Check that the inventory is included and that a check list of documents, i.e. Right to rent, How to rent, and the deposit protection service prescribed information has been issued and signed for.
The documents should be passed over to you at the end of the contracted period of notice, assuming you ditch them. Assuming the agent is being paid to provide full management, all documents belong to you.
If there is no mention of fee increases in the contract refuse it. If they take the fees without your agreement raise a complaint with ARLA and the Property Ombudsman.
I had an agent who stated in their terms that gas and electrical safety is the landlords responsibility, which it is, however under full management an agent has a duty to manage the scheduling and procurement of annual safety certifications required by law, which you would have paid for also. Therefore, they are yours.
Thanks for your help. The old contract isn’t up yet so we stated our position and bided our time. Eventually they rang again asking us what our plans were. We said we didn’t plan to pay for an increase for our long term easy going tenents so they offered to drop the increase if we stayed with them.
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Result! Thanks for coming back to update us.
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