Most tenants will rent their property via letting agents. But there are quite a few important points you should know about them .
Here are five for starters. You will probably find some others if you read around the posts on this blog.
1. Letting agents are unregulated
Yes, anyone can set up as a letting agent. There are no exams to pass, no regulations to comply with. So that letting agent with the fancy web-site and all the talk could be completely inexperienced, know virtually nothing about landlord and tenant law, and have no professional indemnity insurance.
Some agents are regulated but this is voluntary. But if at all possible it is best to choose one of these. The organisations are:
- The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) – www.arla.co.uk
- The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) – www.rics.org
- The National Approved Letting Scheme (NALS) – www.nalscheme.co.uk
- The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) – www.naea.co.uk
It is also good if they are registered with the Property Ombudsman (TPO) – www.tpos.co.uk
2. The letting agents client is the landlord. Not you.
This will often mean that when push comes to shove, it is the landlords interests which are more important to the agent. The landlord is after all the one paying his fee.
3. If you pay your tenancy deposit to the agent, the agent is responsible for seeing that it is protected.
So if the agent says that he has passed it over to the landlord and it is none of his business, this is wrong. He is liable to you if the regulations have not been complied with, in the same way that the landlord is. This was confirmed in a High Court decision called Draycott & Draycott -v- Hannells Letting Limited.
Note that if you find this out after you have moved out the property, you will be able to make a claim using our tenancy deposit no win no fee service.
4. Your agent is legally obliged to provide your landlords’ details
Under s1 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the agent (or the person who collects rent) must give you the name and address of your landlord within 21 days of you making a written request.
If your landlord is a limited company, you are entitled to request the name and address of every director and the company secretary.
If the agent refuses to give you this information, it is a criminal offence. You should report this to your Local Authority Housing Officer however as Local Authorities are the prosecuting organisation, not the police.
5. If your agent assures you of something which then turns out to be untrue, you may be able to sue him for compensation.
This will not always be the case, and also you will only be able to sue if you have actually suffered some financial loss. You can read more about this in my blog post here.
Those are my five points. Do you have any points which you think tenants ought to know about?
See more help for tenants on Landlord Law.
How about the fact that when the agent insists you have tell him whether or not you’re moving out, and if not, that you’ll have to sign a new tenancy, that you have to do no such thing. I had an agent call me to make that claim last week, and tried to insist that I was obligated by his alleged agreement with my landlord.
In my experience many tenants would rather deal with private landlords as many letting agents do a poor job of managing the property- meaning repairs often take longer than they should and arn’t always done to the correct standard.
Jon
I would also add that the agent acts on behalf of the landlord and many tenants assume that the agent is able to action repairs and requests. many tenants are not aware that they have to seek permission from the landlord first. Some agents will have in their agreement with the landlord that they can carry out repairs up to a certain amount, above that they have to get landlord permission.
This is also the case for example if the tenant asks for something like white goods to be provided in the property.
Your point on unregulated agents is a valid one but there are many many agents unregulated who do an excellent job all round. Like any industry it is a case of the minority spoiling it for the majority.
I have often had experience of having done tenant finder work for a landlord only to get all the grief and stress when that landlord has not been a good one. Many times tenants have come to me blaming us for their problems when we dont even manage their tenancy. We make a point of clarifying at the start of every tenancy where our responsibilities lie depending if we manage the tenancy or not.
Regards
Nick