Estate agent administration fee

Abraham said:
The admin fee is the only bit which is a rip off, 1 months deposit and a month in advance is perfectly acceptable, you really think they did £185 of work in making maybe a phone call on your behalf and filling your details in on their system?
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the fee is how they make their money. Covers all their expenses, including time, viewings, phone calls and references/credit checks.

Still feels like a rip off and begrudge paying it, especially when some charge zero but they must take part of the landlords rent, always try and find private, but so few about in the last 5 or so years.
 
Abraham said:
The admin fee is the only bit which is a rip off, 1 months deposit and a month in advance is perfectly acceptable, you really think they did £185 of work in making maybe a phone call on your behalf and filling your details in on their system?
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We went out on about 10 different viewings, and they must have made just as many calls or more. This in addition to completing all of our paperwork for us, sorting our deposit protection scheme, reference checks, credit checks and undertaking inventories racked up at least a day's work.

As a professional business, if I wasn't charging equivalent of at least £25/hr for such services then I wouldn't make enough money to bother!
 
Jingo... said:
We went out on about 10 different viewings, and they must have made just as many calls or more. This in addition to completing all of our paperwork for us, sorting our deposit protection scheme, reference checks, credit checks and undertaking inventories racked up at least a day's work.

As a professional business, if I wasn't charging equivalent of at least £25/hr for such services then I wouldn't make enough money to bother!
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10 viewings? what's that got to do with the one flat you took?
credit checks are the only thing of any real expense, the entirety of the rest is about half an hours work plus compiling the inventory, maybe another hour.

Not sure what you mean by completing your paperwork for you..? they build up your details through the process and just press print to compile everything together, they don't manually write out your contract.
 
AcidHell2 said:
the fee is how they make their money. Covers all their expenses, including time, viewings, phone calls and references/credit checks.

Still feels like a rip off and begrudge paying it, especially when some charge zero but they must take part of the landlords rent, always try and find private, but so few about in the last 5 or so years.
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Like I said I'm interested to hear if those who charge these fees charge less to the landlord. Unless they're managing the property it will only be a one off charge whoever is paying it (landlord/tenant)
 
It's worth noting agents take a % of the monthly rental too. Figures I've seen doing tax returns range form 7% to 15%, plus VAT on top.
 
Abraham said:
10 viewings? what's that got to do with the one flat you took?
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All time spent with people is money - we took the best part of a day with one of their staff; an agent has to take into account people like me or those who spend weeks before getting sorted, not just the simple cases.


Abraham said:
credit checks are the only thing of any real expense, the entirety of the rest is about half an hours work plus compiling the inventory, maybe another hour.
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Nope; our deposit is controlled through an external company for security which comes with its own administration fee absorbed within the Agent's fee. Credit checks - although of little expense take people's time and attention. References - further time and money usually involving another external party.


Abraham said:
Not sure what you mean by completing your paperwork for you..? they build up your details through the process and just press print to compile everything together, they don't manually write out your contract.
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The details of a landlord, property, client or other involved parties do not simply appear on a computer ready for that magical print button. :p

As you say, some of these processes might not have taken that long for them; we could have been researching private only landlords, phoning around, arranging our own viewings when suitable for all parties, creating our own contracts, legally accrediting them, negotiating, finalising, doing inventory & countless other tasks but this was all entirely taken care of on our behalf with next to zero effort on our part.

I'm not sure what it's like in Manchester, but £185 to go from 'Hi I'm looking for a rental property' to 'Let's stick the kettle on and move our boxes in' is not bad going.
 
I know Estate Agents get a bad name but they still have to pay staff, tax, water, electricity, insurance, etc like any other company.
 
Think ours were, Credit Check, ID check, Their Fee.

then we also had to pay a retainer (was like £300) which was then deducted from first months rent.

And of course our deposit.
 
A lot of crap in this thread.

Fact 1; Agents do not have to charge admin fees. There are agents that don't. There are also agents who will waive admin fees for high profile clients.

Fact 2; Any agent makes up their admin fee amount. It is not about recouping any losses. It is a made-up sum which can be anything from £50 to £500 or more.

Fact 3; The admin fee is not how they make their money. Estate agents make their money off landlords fees.

Fact 4; not all agents are 'scumbags'. I have dealt with some very good ones in my time.

Fact 5; It's always worth trying on the charm and seeing if they can reduce the admin fee for you. Some agents will do it out of goodwill.
 
Jingo... said:
All time spent with people is money - we took the best part of a day with one of their staff; an agent has to take into account people like me or those who spend weeks before getting sorted, not just the simple cases.

Nope; our deposit is controlled through an external company for security which comes with its own administration fee absorbed within the Agent's fee. Credit checks - although of little expense take people's time and attention. References - further time and money usually involving another external party.

The details of a landlord, property, client or other involved parties do not simply appear on a computer ready for that magical print button. :p

As you say, some of these processes might not have taken that long for them; we could have been researching private only landlords, phoning around, arranging our own viewings when suitable for all parties, creating our own contracts, legally accrediting them, negotiating, finalising, doing inventory & countless other tasks but this was all entirely taken care of on our behalf with next to zero effort on our part.

I'm not sure what it's like in Manchester, but £185 to go from 'Hi I'm looking for a rental property' to 'Let's stick the kettle on and move our boxes in' is not bad going.
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They haven't entered any details for you other than your own details, if they are letting a property the landlord is paying them to do so, and as such paying for them to do viewings, collate contracts (which is as simple as pressing a magic print button, there's no need to try and be patronising, I used to work for an estate agents, I know exactly what's involved.) and the admin effort of running checks/creating inventory.
The only fee specific to you should be the fees for checks, because obviously if the checks fail then they'll need to do them again.

You may think it's a reasonable amount to pay to avoid the effort for yourself, but they're already being paid to do those things, that is their sole purpose. You are getting ripped off by a letting agent if you pay more than the cost of the credit and maybe reference checks (not that many reference checks are followed up on)
 
I'm pretty sure my folks (who run an agency) don't charge any kind of admin fee for tenants, the only thing they charge them for are the references/credit check stuff they have to do. The money they make from that I think is just a few quid they get back from which ever company they use for the checks, but I could be remembering wrongly and they actually charge say £50 more than the checks :)

Most of the cash they make comes from the person whose place they are renting out, usually get a months rent as a fee for finding someone and then if they carry on managing the property it's something like 10% of the rent a month.

It's easy money for an agent with relatively little hassle, btu that all does depend on what kind of tenant you get. They've had some people who are just always on the phone about anything.
 
Estate agents get away with too much IMO, how they can justify charging £200 on a credit check is beyond me. There should be clear guidelines laid out that they have to adhere to. Another one is the inventory check, it's unfurnished you *****, so why are you charging me to see that the property is indeed empty on move out/move in/

I always try and rent private.
 
Well my reference failed (guarantor), and the estate agents told the landlord who said to cancel the let.

I had previously said it was no problem to pay six months rent upfront if necessary, but would prefer not to if possible. They said it's now not an option as there's no guarantee future rent would come in.

I'm furious to say the least.

Any hope of even getting a penny of my £500 back?
 
rpg said:
Well my reference failed (guarantor), and the estate agents told the landlord who said to cancel the let.

I had previously said it was no problem to pay six months rent upfront if necessary, but would prefer not to if possible. They said it's now not an option as there's no guarantee future rent would come in.

I'm furious to say the least.

Any hope of even getting a penny of my £500 back?
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Read the terms in your agreement. It's almost certain that they'll just keep it though.
 
Our first rental fell through - but it was a case that we discovered the place had damp and the landlord wasn't going to do anything about it so we pulled out. Agency took our side and took the house off their books, so it's a different situation to yours (where I know it sounds harsh but it sounds as if it's an issue at your end that it's not gone through).
Our letting agency refunded our referencing fees (about £180 I think) - then we used the same references for the house we ended up renting, our current landlord had no problems with accepting our previous references. Bargain :)

Good luck getting your fees back.
 
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In 3 or 4 years of renting, I haven't had to pay any admin fees. It's a bit off-putting to start off with, and I'd only really go with them if I badly wanted the place they were letting.
 
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