Agents rewenal fee

I'm pretty sure Ali_hire is going to be the main person to answer this question, but thought I would throw it out there for everyone else.

Having being in a rented property for 3 years, our tenancy renewal is up again, but this time the letting agency is asking for £84 to renewal, but not via paper, but doing electronically with a click here to sign thing. £84 quid to click and email back, that's taking the piss slightly! It was £74 last year!

Anyway, if I do pay it, it will put us on a Assured Shorthold Agreement, but with the clauses of:



To me, that break clause can be issued at any time? Am I correct? If so, wouldn't it be better to go to a periodic rolling agreement where the break clause is still the same, then I wouldn't need to pay the renewal fee.

Ideally, I'd like not to pay this renewal fee if possible!

Do you not just go on to a rolling monthly contract if you don't sign? Girlfriend had the same recently. After reading through our paperwork it appeared she had 2 months notice regardless. Naturally she didn't pay the fee and went to a monthly rolling. I thought it rather naughty of the agent as they pitched it as giving her more security. Despite nothing in the paperwork to support this.

The way it's written, you're right; it appears as though either you or the Landlord can give your respective periods of notice at any time hence your question why pay (or why bother even signing, for that matter?)

However, all new tenancies effectively give tenants automatic rights to occupy for at least 6 months. Whilst a Landlord could exercise his right to serve you notice before the 6 months is out, he cannot force you out through the legal channels if you don't want to leave.

Do you want security of tenure or flexibility? If it's the former then I'd ask for 12 months with no break clause (assuming you definitely want to stay for 12 months).

If it's the latter then save yourself the money and just keep the agreement you have on a periodic basis.

Cheers Ali, glad I was fairly right on something

I will discuss it with the other half later, about them changing the wording to give us 12 months or go to a periodic basis. Interestingly enough, I was looking through the T&C's with this letting agent and under 'Breach of agreement' was a paragraph that interested me, it said along the lines of, if the tenant wishes to renew their tenancy agreement there will be a charge of £50 + VAT

Sometimes these things can work in your favour. Before we took the decision to move to Spain, we intended to stay in our current property, which we rent. We were (somewhat anxiously) waiting for the agent to send us a new 12-month contract, with every intention of signing it. However, nothing came, despite an exchange of emails and by the time the new contract actually arrived, we had decided to leave. Because we hadn't signed a new contract tying us to the property, we were free to give 1 month's notice. As it happens, we gave 2 months' as it suited us, but we were very relieved that we hadn't committed to another 12 months.

So, to bump this one back up, I've spoken with the agency and I asked them the difference between paying the renewal fee and going to a periodic tenancy, she didn't say much apart from that they don't really do them, so I asked what difference is there in security between the 2, she didn't really answer, but she did ask if I wanted to go to a periodic tenancy.

I also queried the renewal fee and quoted from the T&C's that we signed:

12.5 The tenant agrees to pay the Landlord's Agent £50 plus VAT for each extension of the tenancy agreement and agrees that any charges remain outstanding at the end of the tenancy then may be deducted from the tenancy deposit.

Since we haven't actually signed anything to agree to pay more, I asked her why? She said she would go and ask. She has now come back to me via emailing saying:

There is no where else in the T&C's that they could put the price up?

So, what is my stance here? Go to periodic and tell them to swing for the £84 and claim back the previous over payments of £70 and £72 on the renewal fee. Obviously I would speak to the Landlord about this as I do have a good relationship with him.

If you don't need the security, go periodic.

If you get on with the landlord, he will want to keep you so it is very low risk.

If you have a good relationship with your Landlord (and you have his contact details) then I'd call him and see what his intentions for the house are. If he indicates he's unlikely to do anything other than let you live there for the foreseeable future then tell the agent you don't want to sign a new tenancy and you're happy to go periodic (they likely charge the Landlord a similar renewal fee).

As for claiming back the difference in cost between what your tenancy says and what you've been charged I don't think you'll have much joy.

Their offer of renewing the tenancy for a fee is an agreement between you and the agent in itself. They'll argue that when they previously offered the renewal at £70 (offer) you agreed (acceptance) and then paid the fee (consideration). Emjay can correct me on this if I'm wrong.

I'm not a fan of putting fees into tenancy agreements. For one thing you get into arguments when you need to alter them at a later date (in line with competition/inflation or if VAT changes again).

But, more importantly, the tenancy agreement is an agreement between the tenant and the landlord, not the agent.

Ali is probably right that it is a losing 'legal' argument, although bearing in mind it would be small claims and the judges there aren't always so bothered about the law as 'justice' I would call it evens. There are some potential legal arguments going the other way, but even for Beggers I am not going to invest the time here exploring and running through them all for a claim worth a maximum £22!

However, professionally they ought to be embarrassed enough - if is only a few quid to them and they would be nuts to argue it. As a landlord I would not be best pleased to think they were shafting my tenant (risking me losing them). I would therefore push but taking the angle that it was unprofessional - and looking to contact their regulatory body - than arguing the law. They won't want the hassle.

I know of agents who do all sorts of things to serve their own interests rather than those of their Landlord client.

One unnamed but rather large independent agency here in the South have a policy of demanding tenants stay in fixed term agreements or serving them notice.

This is done regardless of the Landlord's intentions and, presumably, without their consultation.

Cheers chaps

I'm not going to chase the owing £22, it was more just a question, as why sign something to agree on X, when they feel they can change it to Y without any notice and kind of just expect the client to suck up the cost? What's the point in signing things if anyone can change what they feel like?

I do have a good relationship with the LL. I have his number and I actually call him if there is a problem, rather than the letting agents as they are somewhat useless at doing anything. I called into the letting agency last year when I changed jobs to change the payment date (due to different pay days) and they said I couldn't change it. I could pay earlier, but not later, so called the LLto say I need to adjust my payment dates due to a change of job and pay dates. One phone call from him to the agent and it suddenly wasn't a problem, anyway I'm digressing.

Ali, I'm wondering if the independent agency you're talking about is the same as mine, they claim to be the 'first in letting'

Got it in one.

Final bump (he hopes!)

Spoken with the LL and he whole heartily agrees with going to a periodic and would like to do away with the admin fee that they get charged to, even though the admin fee comes out of the rent payment, said letting agent has already taken it without us even agreeing to renewing or not!

Anyway, I've informed the letting agent that we want to go to a periodic for the agent to turn round and say that the fee still applies this time as they still have to do the paperwork etc.. Now, my understanding (from various reading on t'interweb) is that when you go to a periodic, there is no admin fee? So could someone confirm (Ali ) this is correct, so I can tell them to go and stick it!

Thanks

It's a question of contract. Ask them to point out where in the contract you agreed to pay any fee in these circumstances. If there is nothing, you can laugh in their face.

Well, that's the thing. From memory, they don't have anything in the T&C's about going to a periodic agreement which I have signed. A quick Google again, shows that no new contract needs to be drawn up when going to periodic, so no fee needs to be done, plus as I mentioned last week, they have already broken their own T&C's in regards to charging me more on the admin fee

What Mark said.

I found this topic very interesting and look forward to the conclusion!