Official guidance for agents and landlords has been published on the tenants’ fees ban, due to come into force on June 1.
The guidance makes clear that a Section 21 notice cannot be served if a tenant has been wrongly charged.
It lists the only charges that an agent is entitled to make, and says that any charge not on the list is banned.
The only allowable charges are:
- The rent;
- a refundable tenancy deposit capped at no more than five weeks’ rent where the annual rent is less than £50,000, or six weeks’ rent where the total annual rent is £50,000 or more;
- a refundable holding deposit (to reserve a property) capped at one week’s rent;
- payments to change the tenancy when requested by the tenant, capped at £50, or reasonable costs incurred if higher;
- payments associated with early termination of the tenancy when requested by the tenant;
- payments in respect of utilities, communication services, TV licence and council tax;
- a default fee for late payment of rent and replacement of a lost key/security device, where required under a tenancy agreement.
Tragic to see that there will still be the ability for the rogue agents who caused the ban through obscene charges to still charge those most struggling with their finances.
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How have you come to that conclusion as I don’t see anything that will penalise the anyone
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Re-read ALL of the above.
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Nope still don’t see it
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I assume via the surrender of the tenancy, although if someone is in dire financial circumstances, then no agent either pre or post letting fee ban, will be able to get that much anyway from someone who cannot pay (maybe forfeiting the deposit)
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So can someone tell me how do I get paid for resigning up a group of seven students or more when one of them wants to leave their fixed term contract early because they have failed their exams or suffering with stress? This happens all the time and if they think they can get away with it for free then they will abuse it all the more.
It’s not the re advertising fees or the referencing fees that just costs the landlord money but the largest cost is the time taken to sign up a group of seven students. The time is the biggest cost especially when they won’t all turn up as a group of seven. It takes 6 hours to complete a full sign up from start to finish including registration of the deposit, that excludes the direct costs involved. The actual cash cost of re registering a deposit is £18.20 so that’s leaving £31.80 to cover a 6 hour workload. It would be interesting to have Price Cooper Waterhouse Accountants produce a costing for the direct costs involved in a re sign up and what they would recommend a landlord should charge for their time. Remember all office overheads of heat, electric, depreciation, insurance, business rates, computer, photocopier etc etc.
I for one will not be allowing my students to exit the tenancy early and I will not be allowing sub letting so that is going to leave the tenant in a difficult position. I can’t even charge the tenants a fee to cover my costs EVEN IF THEY AGREE TO IT!
Where has the logic, common sense and respect for a landlord gone?
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The legislation isnt saying that it is free for you to just leave a tenancy, as you can charge early exit fees or for a change to a tenancy at the request of the tenants.
You either set out a charge that all original tenants divide up or you charge the exiting tenant. If a tenant just ups and leaves as I suspect most do, then you’ll have their home address and it can be taken up with them directly.
But in a perfect world, this change would be agreed by all tenants and landlord and then the request from the tenant/s is allowed to be charged for.
If the cost for this process is more than £50 and you can evidence this then it is reasonable and can be charged at a higher figure.
However bad students can be they all have email these days and docu-sign/e-signature is a tool that would help a great deal in these cases to get everyone to the end goal, I am not saying that is a way to eliminate all costs but can reduce the effort/time to sort it out.
Tenancy deposits at least provide with some way to recover costs, although probably in student lets its all eaten up by cleaning bills anyway.
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