Unbelievable behaviour! Belvoir **** claiming a labour win will kill the rental market.

As many of you know, I am a scumbag landlord, I don’t use an agent as I can read, and don’t like to give my money away to someone who will only make mine and the tenants life a misery. I can tell you that creating a contract for a tenant involves the laborious, time consuming and unexpectedly costly process of typing the names into a template, followed by the dates and rent value, then pressing print. For which I charge the princely sum of £0 and 0 pence. I can see some of you might find this unpalatable, but I will defend this charging practice robustly.

I’m not a major labour fan, but there is no detectable harm to tenants in scrapping these fees (it might hurt the agents, boo hoo), nor will anyone,landlord or tenant alike, suffer if rent controls are introduced. (If you haven’t voted yet, I prefer the Greens, you should agree with me)

Parasites. I never dealt with a good one in all my years of renting.

This makes me chuckle. I had the “pleasure” of Belvoir when I was looking to rent my house out. The guy who came out was a slimy, rude, cock knocker. The fees tenants pay are ridiculous and they need sorting out.

I have been a tenant with Belvoir and concur with the sentiments above.

Having spent the last 10 years dealing with regulated tenancies still remaining under the old “Fair Rent” Acts, a lot of landlords will disagree with you.

A lot of landlords were very upset with the last labour government when they brought in the Maximum Fair Rent order at the turn of the century.

Depends very much on what they introduce (seems a bit theoretical though ATM)

i read that , it screams to me that they are shitting it that their business model of astronomic fee charges and mark up for generic work is being undermined and they might be forced to do work to justify charges under the shake up.

OP and I bet you charge market rate instead of a low and affordable monthly rent?

Many people are forced into the private rental market. It aint **** cheap.

“I bet you charge market rate instead of a low and affordable monthly rent?”

what do you propose then hora ? the business runs at a loss ? afterall the rental of property is just a business and **** me property and the upkeep of aint cheap.

much like when you sell your bikes after 5 minutes you charge a market rate for the purchase of said bike , never see you giving your stuff away …….

Selling secondhand bike parts will also result in a loss.

Sorry, I just don’t think private rental is very fair on people who in the trap where they can’t afford to buy.

Locally rental prices are high as alot of people can’t afford to buy so alot of their disposable income goes on rent etc. The OP may be a fair landlord- I had one for 5yrs. He was fair to me, everything was fixed quickly, never had an issue with him but the rent was still high.

Letting agents DO charge stupid upfront fees but then montly your paying over and over again aren’t you in the form of ever higher rent.

newsflash – life isn’t fair ……i had to work hard and save hard while living in a dump in a crap part of town paying 700 quid a month for some time for the privilege to get out of the rental trap – and even from the rental trap i must now spend a significant amount of my disposable income modernising and maintaining my house.

So what do you propose Hora – massive nationalisation of housing stock ? Having been on all sides of the tenant/landlord deal in the UK I am amazed at the universal view that all tenants are poor and in some way incapable of looking after themselves, or a flat, and that all landlords are money grabbing cheaters taking advantage of the lower classes.

Get over the Class War people.

(having said that, my Landlord who has generally so far been a nice guy, pocketed my deposit so might find himself in the Sheriff’s court next week)

Could go on about letting agents all day. Current place I’m in cost me and my girlfriend £400 (not including the deposit of 1.5x months rent) just to sign for it. The last place with a different letting agent took 9 months to return my deposit – 10% of it with no good reason to take any of it away. Students seem to get it particularly bad with deposits, Not all of us are tearing the place down, but all of us get robbed with the deposits. As soon as you hand it over they have you by the balls. I don’t know one person at uni who has had a good experience

there is no detectable harm to tenants in scrapping these fees (it might hurt the agents, boo hoo), nor will anyone,landlord or tenant alike, suffer if rent controls are introduced.

It depends on the level of the rent controls. If the rents are allowed to rise too high, then renters don’t really benefit from them; if the rents are kept too low, then the landlords won’t make enough to maintain them, pay a mortgage and make a worthwhile profit. Rent controls in NYC have been a bit of a disaster.

As to agents and their “contract preparation” fees. **** yoooooooooooooouuuuuuuu…..

I just don’t think private rental is very fair on people who in the trap where they can’t afford to buy.

I’ve also been on all sides of the equation having been a private landlord, had a mortgage, owned property outright, been a social housing tenant and I’m now renting privately again..

I prefer to rent, in fact I can’t bloody stand being a property owner..
What a massive unnecessary ballache..
The scrabbling about to afford it, the upkeep, the worry.. it took up waaaay more of my time and energy than I’m prepared to devote to any materialistic endeavour..

not my cuppa at all

Hora, yes I do charge market rate. Well at the top end actually, but I provide excellent quality stock with a lot of extras.

It is just a business, but unlike letting agents I am carrying all the risk, so my income from rent is the compensation for that.
I’ll bet you expect to be paid market rates at work right? Or do you provide your services for free or discounted?

Have had a range of experiences with letting agents as both a tennent and landlord, current one is a small family owned business which is excellent. When I’ve been a landlord I’ve used the agent simply to find and get the tennets I’ve done the rest. The market could do with some revisions, it would be better of the tennets got a standard reference pack from an independent agency. If they don’t it’s reasonable for the landlord / agent to ask for a fee for that.

Negative experiences, no surprise to anyone for me to say Foxtons are awful. Avoid.