Guarantor for rent?

there all paying it though, and whats worse is they make them sign something when they start the referencing / administration process that says the fees for referencing and administration are non refundable.

crazy!
 
MaX_PoWah said:
There must have been big changes in the last 2 years.. i rented a brand new top floor flat in Sheffield in 2007 with nothing but £100 down as a deposit while it was still been finished and then paid the rest of the deposit when i moved in (so a total months rent as a deposit).. and then the first months rent.. and that was it, the guy didn't even know me.

My girlfriend who works in letting now says that a lot of tenants that come to her nearly all end up having to have guarantors, the deposit is a months rent + £100, then they have to pay the first months rent, then there is a flat fee of £100 for administration AND THEN £100 per person referencing! it must be becoming a really expensive affair to rent property.

When she first told me i was really surprised!
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Yes they are legal thieves to be honest. When I was at uni it was a months deposit no admin fees or exit fees now they just take the p**s.

One I was looking at the other day wanted £150.00 per person for admin, £80.00 per person for references, then half a months rent to secure the tenancy (i.e. so no one else looks around) and then 1 and a half months rent for the deposit and if you move out you have to pay them another £150.00 per person as a closing admin fee...

The place I was looking at was £700.00 per month; so that would £1860 just to get in and then another £700.00 for the rent, so in total £2560.00 to find in the first month; £460.00 basically free money to the estate agents. Honestly they are scumbags.

Best off looking for private lets where you can negotiate on these things. They are simply feeding on the shambles of what's left of the housing market: they can charge it because there is no choice.
 
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She has never rented a property herself so she hasn't any experience of it, i think she thinks i am making it up when i say how i never paid any of these fees lol.
 
The guarontor agreement is only for her ability to pay, not for damages which will come out of the Deposit Protection Service scheme (DPS).
So id your sister can not pay, then you are liable to pay any short fall in the said monthly payments.
The DPS is like a tribunal which the land lord has to apply to get the any funds from the held deposit.
They are not allowed to just take a value to cover costs. A case for costs has to be put forward.
That is for a letting of a property we are talking about.
Those who rent a room in a house / flat have no protected deposit scheme.
 
MaX_PoWah said:
they make them sign something when they start the referencing / administration process that says the fees for referencing and administration are non refundable.
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Of course they should be non-refundable. It's not the agent's fault if they do the work then the client fails referencing or the deal falls through. That's like someone putting a fence up in your garden then you changing your mind and asking him to take it down and refusing to pay him for the work.
 
Lysander said:
Of course they should be non-refundable. It's not the agent's fault if they do the work then the client fails referencing or the deal falls through. That's like someone putting a fence up in your garden then you changing your mind and asking him to take it down and refusing to pay him for the work.
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I agree except the fees are extortionate and when there dealing with foreign tenants some of them are not even 100% what they are signing for as they don't expect it to be non refundable on walking away from the deal(this is not something she has done personally but knows it goes on within her company)
 
Sorry to hijack the thread, but this worry is on my mind as well.

My self and my gf are renting a house, we are handing in the reference forms today/tomorrow and the move in date is the 12th feb...

Now, we both have pretty bad credit rating as when we were younger (before we met each other) we both took out stupid loans, credit cards and were very wreckless with our money.

We are not going to mention the worry to the agents but hope it should all go through fine.

I have recently moved from one job to another and have just passed the 3 month probation successfully, my gf has recently accepted the offer to be taken on perm from contract.

I am worried the agents will ask for a guarantor as well. What do you think the chances are?

ags
 
Yeah, letting agents are scum frankly, I'm looking/thinking about moving a bit closer to work but the cost is silly, even ignoring finding the deposit the fees look to be around £100-150 each (me and a mate sharing), and all the agent will actually do is send/fax the forms I've filled out to Homelet and pay a fairly small fee...

Even saw one place charging £250 per person for referencing, and a £150 admin fee as well, who would pay that?
 
agnes said:
Sorry to hijack the thread, but this worry is on my mind as well.

My self and my gf are renting a house, we are handing in the reference forms today/tomorrow and the move in date is the 12th...

Now, we both have pretty bad credit rating as when we were younger (before we met each other) we both took out stupid loans, credit cards and were very wreckless with our money.

We are not going to mention the worry to the agents but hope it should all go through fine.

I have recently got a new job and have just passed the 3 month probation successfully, my gf has recently accepted the offer to be taken on perm from contract.

I am worried the agents will ask for a guarantor as well. What do you think the chances are?

ags
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As a contractor they might ask for something from your business account or your accountant to prove the income of the previous x months.
 
SKILL said:
Even saw one place charging £250 per person for referencing, and a £150 admin fee as well, who would pay that?
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I should imagine some of it is because of the unique nature of property and people seeing something they like and not shopping around and assuming it is normal.
 
MaX_PoWah said:
I should imagine some of it is because of the unique nature of property and people seeing something they like and not shopping around and assuming it is normal.
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That's exactly it. Most agents down the mid-lower market take advantage of the ignorance of their tenants and charge what they like. Basically an agent makes up their admin fee. The admin doesn't 'cost' them anything, it's just their fee for filling in a word document and making phone calls. One agent may charge £50 for admin whereas another may charge £500 [the highest admin fee I ever saw was £800].
 
We paid £350 admin fees, which included the holding deposit and stuff, that was between 2 of us... Very expensive if you ask me :(

Considering it's as said above, for a bit of paper work :(

ags
 
The whole fee charging policy of agents is just to make profit, as we all are aware.
Times are hard and bottom lines have been hit hardest.
The landlord also pays a fee to the agent for introduction of a tentant, holding onto the deposit, inventary and for setting up contracts.
Once the tentant is in the property, then the fee charging normally stops. Unless the landlord opts for the full management service.
TBH it is not worth paying for, as any thing goes wrong they just hand the grief over to the landlord to sort out.
Agents are not skilled, or take professional exams for their profession, so what do you expect from them !
 
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