Yet another London mayoral candidate has said that letting agent fees will be targeted.
Zak Goldsmith, the Tory candidate, has described the fees as “almost like a scam”, while Labour’s Sadiq Khan has said he would end “rip-off fees for renters”.
Now the LibDem candidate, Caroline Pidgeon, has pledged to “scrap unfair letting agent fees for renters”.
In an email sent to voters, she says:
“I was shocked by the recent figures showing that tenants in London pay nearly 3/4 of their take-home pay on rent.
Millions of Londoners – often young people – are paying soaring rents, often for poor quality places. And even that can be insecure – with short-term leases being common.
Nothing robs you of your freedom more than not knowing whether you are going to have to up-sticks and move at short notice.
This week Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and I visited a site being developed by Pocket Living for homes to house first time buyers in Kentish Town, to see how the work they are doing helps tackle London’s housing crisis.
Along with my plan to build 200,000 new homes in London, including 50,000 new council homes, I wanted to tell you about my plan for a Tenant’s Charter, if I’m elected Mayor later this year.
As Mayor – I will:
- crack down on rogue landlords, with a mandatory licensing scheme
- scrap unfair letting agent fees for renters,
- give renters extra rights when landlords sell up.
- give councils the power to manage private rental property, and offer longer tenancies.”
Comments (12)
So i have had about 8 hours for this to sink in….
How do you run a not for profit lettings agency for tenants?
1. Still have to pay a deposit to rent a property.
2. Still have to pay a month in advance.
3. Still need to be paid to be referenced
4. I assume they will have staff in these not for profit organisations to carry out viewings, arrange tenancies, deal with problems and of course arrange advertising.
Now unless i am mistaken all of the above costs money? so how is this going to save the tenant anything? Maybe £50 – £100 i can see but that is all.
Landlords will still want the market rent, The landlords will not buy more than the market fee to an agent to cover the tenants costs, so where are they proposing savings?
I truly am baffled!
In the world of political soundbites, any savings are proportional to the amount of votes they are hoping to gain.
Let the marketplace decide. Is that not how this market is supposed to work?
Is there any candidate for London mayor who is willing to play fair to all and:
1. Impose a cap on the fees letting agents can charge tenants (as opposed to scrapping altogether);
2. Build enough more homes for both the private and social sector?
Right now, I would say the ridiculously high rents people are having to pay cause far more hardship than the trending headline of “rip-off agent fees” (which in many cases politicians and others with their own agenda misleadingly use to describe rent and deposits).
Much as I absolutely hate the LibDems, Labour and all the other bleeding hearts, there is no doubt that most letting agents do rip off tenants with their made up fees. As a landlord, I have even spoken to tenants who report that they were charged nearly £1000 in letting agent so-called admin fees.
..meanwhile landlords try to defend the ridiculously high rents that most of them expect tenants to pay against the advice of their agents. People in glass houses Landlordsand letting, people in glass houses…
Agree with Landlordsandlettings…
I have experience for working for 15 something office west London agency and their fees were extremely high and not justifiable. Personally, you cannot defend such charges considering most were marked up or did not represent the worked involved. £85 for a renewal to both the tenant and landlord, charge for deposit compliance, when the scheme charge was a fraction of the actual cost, a referencing charge which bared no resemblance to the charge made by Homelet.
I could go on and on. Unless something is done to realign fees to the actual cost, plus a small profit, then you will continually have politicians demand action is taken.
Whilst there are no doubt some agents whose admin fees are too high, I do not think for one second that qualifies as “most” as you suggest L&L. Please do not forget that we are a business and overheads have to be met. Its not just a case of the time it takes to process an application, the admin fee has to contribute to the time it takes to conduct viewings, pay overheads, staff etc etc. If we cannot make a sensible charge for our services please advise what we should do instead but be careful what you wish for
I think that are all off their rockers!!!!! They need sectioning, they all seem to be promising thinks that are outside their powers. THERE IS NO MAINSTREAM CANDIDATE WORTHY OF ANY LANDLORD VOTING FOR.
These are the people who should be address the ROOT CAUSE of the problems INADEQUATE SOCIAL HOUSING rather than “vote buying” bull ****. How is Mr Farron going to fund his housing scheme. Talk is cheap when you don’t stand a hope in hell of being elected as Mayor.
Come now we all know the ROOT cause of this problem are politicians and big businesses riding roughshod over the electorates wishes.
They made the decision to allow open borders without a massive house building plan to accommodate the millions that were inevitably going to come here. We are now a nation of room renters, towns and cities all over Britain have landlords buying up properties to rent ‘rooms’, this being the only affordable way for a lot of people to live with a roof over their head. In London the situation is dire with garages and cupboards being used as dwellings. The CAUSE, artificial and unmanaged open door immigration policies. The answer? Tear up more of our countryside and become the next China.
Do these candidates remind anybody else of a student union president?
Making ill thought out and unachievable promises.
Exactly. A very silly promise that he is unlikely to be able to backup. It sounds nice but would be nightmare to get to work. Presumably if it did, it would mean that the lettings agents just add their fees onto the landlords costs which means the rents go up. Not much achieved there then!