Change of tenants on rental property

SMN · 25 Apr 2012 at 14:29

Hi all,

So i am in a bit of a quandry and looking for advice. Basically, I lived with my ex for 6 months before she moved out and we are both on the paperwork / deposit (I paid it all so no idea why i put her name on, but que sera sera).

We are good friends still so there are no problems there around getting her to sign things, but i just spoke to my estate agents (Romans of Reading..) and they want 15 days rent (around 400 quid) PLUS VAT, to take her name off the contract and re-submit the deposit. They also want to re-do my references, which is farcical. I have naturally objected to paying 500 quid basically to change a name on the forms, and they are going to get back to me in the next few days.

Am i being unreasonable here in thinking £500 is a massive fee for such nominal work?

postbox · 25 Apr 2012 at 14:50

You're not being unreasonable for thinking that but isn't it the culture of estate agents to charge astronmical amounts for what must take 30 mins of their time?
What would happen if you decided to leave the contract with her name on it?

sniffy · 25 Apr 2012 at 14:51

Of course it's unreasonable. A trained monkey could do that but that's estate agents for you. No tangible skills and charge a lot for it.

sbi5ar · 25 Apr 2012 at 14:58

sniffy said:
Of course it's unreasonable. A trained monkey could do that but that's estate agents for you. No tangible skills and charge a lot for it.

This...

You might find they come back and say something along the lines of "we'll have to charge you any way as you have stated said person is no longer at that address" and force you to pay

SMN · 25 Apr 2012 at 14:59

postbox said:
You're not being unreasonable for thinking that but isn't it the culture of estate agents to charge astronmical amounts for what must take 30 mins of their time?
What would happen if you decided to leave the contract with her name on it?

Nothing - just i'd have to keep her onside constantly, at the minute she has the power to be off with me and refuse to sign anything, which would screw me over deposit wise. Ive told the landlord and ive asked the letting agency to negotiate a 35 quid a month reduction in rent, therefore saving me around 400 quid a year, which can offset the majority of the cost. What a pain.

sbi5ar · 25 Apr 2012 at 15:07

SMN said:
Nothing - just i'd have to keep her onside constantly, at the minute she has the power to be off with me and refuse to sign anything, which would screw me over deposit wise. Ive told the landlord and ive asked the letting agency to negotiate a 35 quid a month reduction in rent, therefore saving me around 400 quid a year, which can offset the majority of the cost. What a pain.

Forge signature

If she is off side then she won't know what your up to moving wise etc...