One of the big gripes tenants have against letting agents is the number of fees that are charged.
Often for things that you would have thought are for the landlords benefit rather than theirs, often without proper warning on a ‘take it or forget about renting this property’ basis.
As the letting agency industry is largely unregulated, there is not a lot most tenants can do about this.
- Complain to the agents? They will just laugh.
- Complain to the agents property redress scheme? Most tenants are unaware of this, and anyway don’t want the hassle
- Bring proceedings through the courts? Not something most tenants would want to or be able to do on their own.
Cashhub to the rescue
However – as reported in the Guardian, there is now a champion on the horizon – Casehub, a ‘community driven regulator’, started by Cambridge law graduate Michael Green. Its purpose – to bring claims on behalf of consumers against big business.
One of the claims they want to bring is against London letting agent Foxtons, to claim back all those tenant fees they have charged, which Casehub claim are illegal.
It is interesting that not long ago I wrote about Landlords doing it for themselves and now I learn of a claim being brought on behalf of tenants.
Sadly the government has failed to step up to the mark to protect tenants (and landlords) against rapacious agents. So it is good to see that people are turning to the law to protect their interests and enforce their rights.
Good for the good letting agents too
Needless to say – this is also good news for the good letting agents. Not all agents charge admin, tenancy agreement, and renewal fees to tenants. It is important to remember that and not to brand all agents the same.
Good agents perform a valuable service sometimes even fighting their own landlords to uphold tenants rights.
However at the end of the day, agents are retained by landlords not tenants, and landlords are their customers. In my opinion, it is wrong to force tenants to pay for their operating costs (other than perhaps the actual cost of a reference check or ½ of total inventory check fees). There operating costs should be covered by their (fairly hefty) fees to landlords.
It will be interesting to see how this further claim against Foxtons progresses.
If you are a tenant and are interested in joining the claim click here.