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Claire Empson

Director

4844 Profile Views

About Me

I am a former martial artist, graphic designer and artworker, now a mother of two boys, landlord, Director of Daisy Lets & Sales and lover of Boxing Yoga! I'm a passionate environmentalist and supporter of equality in all aspects of life, particularly Women in Business. I run a support and networking group for mothers in business in South London and founded the ThinkBIG project which provides inspiration to young women/girls towards self employment and entrepreneurship on a local level.

my expertise in the industry

Landlord since 2005, agency owner since 2007.

Claire 's Recent Activity

I have come across landlords that charge referencing fees to their tenants, and check out fees, and deposit reg fees and ask us to add this in the contract, with us not charging at all - will this ban affect landlords charging fees too - I assumed it would - this article emphasises "letting agent fees" I thought it was just "fees to tenants" can someone please clarify this? A cap was the way to go.. it is a service that we provide and we can't afford to pay staff to do it and then provide it for free - as we don't charge very high fees for the lettings service compared to many. We currently do all referencing in house apart from a credit check, and it is very time consuming. If landlords don't wish to pay for it, the future might have to be we don't do it at all?! - and if the landlord wants referencing they will have to arrange it and pay for it directly to the referencing agency themselves. Or the tenant is made to engage a referencing company themselves -and pay them directly - and the agency sends us or the landlord the results? Or we just have to charge a higher letting fee in the first place like all the rest. It will level the playing field for us against the really bargain bucket agents that undercut even us on letting fees because they make it up elsewhere on the tenant fees however! I did wonder how they could afford it - it seems to be on the mark up of tenants fees and contractor commission (we also don't do that - but maybe we may have to in the future if we have to make up the loss!) I'm a bit fed up with everyone assuming all agents are greedy - yes there are some that have spoilt it for the rest of us who have had up to now decent/honest business models and fair fees to both landlord and tenants. It's a shame we are now tarred with the same brush and will be seen as "rip off" if we try to charge for a service we provide now to the landlord.

From: Claire Empson 04 December 2016 10:42 AM

Yep - at a party I am a former graphic designer now "in property" much more acceptable / interesting

From: Claire Empson 12 September 2016 10:46 AM

I've already emailed her direct;y after a canvassing email hit my inbox from her asking for horror stories about landlords and agencies, clearly trying to gather strength for another round of landlord bashing. I told her exactly what I thought of her policies, and the low down tactics/jumping on an easy target bandwagon, funnily enough she didn't reply!!

From: Claire Empson 11 March 2016 09:30 AM

Um, actually the unofficial rulebook these days DOES say council tenants are bad tenants, almost everyone I know that has rented this way ends up with a negative story, no matter how much they want to help and sympathise - landlords are not charities or social workers - something the DSS claimants seem to not realise - it's entirely up to them who they rent to. If this campaign actually succeeded, it would be one more nail in the coffin of landlords willing to keep in the industry at all. If things carry on, there will be no more rented housing full stop that isn't owned by large companies building blocks of flats who don't actually care about their properties - a return to ghettos. The government need to build more social housing, stop selling it off to the people who used to need it and then don't leaving the people further down the chain unable to access it, and leave the private landlords to rent to private tenants or pay directly the ones that do want to help by calendar month, promise not to claw back the money and stop advising tenants to stay put until evicted. This group need to march on council offices or government, not address the landlords!

From: Claire Empson 26 February 2016 10:32 AM

It would be too late by then though!??

From: Claire Empson 14 September 2015 18:26 PM

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