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Charlie Cast
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my expertise in the industry

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Charlie Cast
Its so refreshing to hear someone say something good about the service agents provide. It seems where ever i go everyone seems to have pre judged me and that im a scheming con artist. This couldbt be further from the truth i work really hard to look after all my tenants and landlords. With all the added tax changes coming in that are causing so many landlords to sell up if they ban us charging let fees we will go under. I believe we are reasonable in the referencing fees we charge and on most references we put through i spend alot of time working with tenants to get them through this process. I dont agree with agents that will reference 30 different people at the same for the same property knowing that 29 of these people will have paid this fee for nothing and will be rejected even if they pass all the check and references. We also dont force tenants in to regular renewals every 6 months and give the tenant the choice to go on to a rolling contract which doesnt need renewing all the time and if they want the security of another fixed contract we ask them for a fee of £65 to cover our costs which certainly arnt £4 we have to prepare all the new paper work we then visit the tenants at home to complete this with them I often spend a good hour chatting with the tenants going over any problems they have and generally building a good relationship with them so this process can easily take a couple of hours of my time. I then have travelling expenses to and from the property and often have to pay to park once i get there. We have to make a small profit in the work we do or what would be the point. I think the answer has to be that these items are properly regulated to stop the agents that charge £500 to complete a reference that cost them £15. It think we need to look at the crippling fees that sites like Rightmove choose to charge us to advertise a property and the governing bodies we are forced to pay annual fees out to as unless we do so are not legal allowed to be a letting agent. Estate agents also make massive profits charging huge commission rates when selling a property and probably do a tenth of the work to complete this process than we have to carry out when letting a property to a tenant we have to prepare contract, ensure the property meets current safety regulations, we have to set up and protect the tenants deposit, provide them with prescribed information on this deposit, we have to check a tenants right to rent in the UK, take meter readings, provide the tenants with the governments right to rent leaflet, a copy of the EPC and Gas safety certificate, provide them with details on legionnaires disease and what to do in an emergency, carry out a detailed inventory, we have to go over where everything is fuse box, stop cock, show them how the boiler works. Tenants always have lots of questions when moving and and we spend time answering these question in detail with them and ensure they are clear on everything thats involved when renting a property. I quite often have to arrange things like parking permits once they have moved in. Its debatable who should be responsible for covering these cost but my point is not all letting agents charge huge fees for doing very little and many agents work really hard to meet todays lettings rules and regulations and the fees we charge are because we have no choice but to to cover our costs.

From: Charlie Cast 05 October 2017 05:10 AM

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