UKIP has joined other political parties in criticising agents who, in a party spokesman's words, are ripping people off with extortionate fees and additional charges.
The UKIP member of the European Parliament representing north east England, Paul Nuttall, has penned a column in his Euro-constituency dedicated to the current lettings debate: The typical fees for tenants signing into a new agreement have sky rocketed in recent years making privately rented accommodation increasingly unaffordable.
The party told EAT that it had not formally debated agents' fees or practices but it endorsed Nuttall's views, which have now been published in a local newspaper.
These fees need to be far more transparent, allowing potential tenants to actually know what they are paying for. It seems ridiculous that tenants can be charged extortionate sums for the likes of credit checks when these can be obtained for a tiny fraction of the cost says Nuttall.
A fairer, more transparent letting agency sector would make it easier for tenants to look for rentals with alternative agents while making private tenancy more affordable concludes the MEP.
UKIP has commented relatively little on housing and related issues in its local election manifesto produced for this week's election, but one paragraph in its 2014 local policy statement promises to reduce the pressure on housing by ending open-door immigration, oppose the bedroom tax but provide incentives to re-use empty homes, protect our green spaces by directing new housing and business developments to brown-field sites.
The party's European election manifesto says on housing and development: Our green spaces are threatened by over-development largely brought about by the population pressure caused by mass immigration.
Earlier this year it was revealed that UKIP's housing spokesman was a millionaire landlord with many of his tenants being immigrants. It is reported that Andrew Charalambous's company, Woodlands Estates Limited, received £745,315 in housing benefit cash for his tenants through Haringey Council in north London.
We operate in an area that is largely a migrant population. From a commercial point of view and a human point of view, we are not concerned about what the ethnic origin of the tenants is says Charalambous.
Comments
The housing and property market really is a hot potato - which is good news imho.
Robust and healthy debate and advocating those who voluntarily subscribe to professional standards will contribute to consumer awareness. Education must be part of the process and the social web is playing a massive and positive part in that due to the transparency and reach it affords.
On the topic of UKIP, I interviewed Nigel Farage about UKIP's attitude towards housing:
http://www.propertytribes.com/pt-tv-interview-with-nigel-farage-mep-leader-t-4909.html
Mr Farage was not afraid to voice what a lot of other people think, but are too stymied by political correctness to say!
In a recent debate on housing, a homeless man was humiliated and boo-d out of the TV studio for doing the same.
I welcome straight talking and common sense. It's not as common as it should be.
It seems to me that there are a lots of people criticising the ASA - afterall, most agents complied with their requirements. The issue remains - many get away with ignoring the rules as no one polices them.
Now, I think I need to be careful how I explain myself here... :p
Might I suggest that the main problem that all [b]good[/b] letting agents have is that competition (which is supposed to be good for customers) has caused a SERIOUS downward pressure on the commission that agents can effectively charge their landlords.
In my previous company, average fees went down by over 30% when all of the local sales agents became lettings agents during the credit crunch.
You can try and tell me that we should have held firm and that a good agent always gets their fee, but the true practicality of it was that when another (good, reputable market leading sales) agent is offering an equivalent service for half the price (trying to buy the market) there is nothing you can do but bow to the inevitable.
The cost for an agent to let a property has not gone down, rents have gone up, but not by 30+ percent, so that effectively means that agents are getting fewer instructions at a lower commission rate.
WHAT DOES EVERYONE EXPECT FOR GOODNESS SAKES
Of course agents are going to try to recoup the money, otherwise they will not have a viable business, would close down and make their staff redundant.
I think we could call this the long tail of the credit crunch - the unexpected consequences of rampant greed by the banks and the continued failure of the UK Government (for the last [b]50[/b] years) to have a coherent housing market strategy (and by that I do NOT mean rent control or fee control) by BUILDING MORE HOUSES.
(oooh, there's me ranting again)
When in agency I always charged tenancy referencing charges at cost, and did not charge them for drafting a tenancy agreement, the landlord paid for that. I did however make an administration charge of 100 per property, not per tenant, which was partly refundable after deduction of any admin charges incurred, based on a 'per hour' calculation if they withdrew or references were inadequate and a tenancy refused. It was used as part of the first months rent if they went ahead.
Agents who just make a 'non'refundable' charge are of course in breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, and probabaly the 1999 UTCCRs, and would lose in court if they tried to retain such a charge. I know because I saw that was what exactly happened when an agent could not give a break down of how their 'non-refundable' charge was calculated, and the judge ordered a complete refund.
Us agents are not ripping tenants off in any form. Some agents may charge a higher fee than others but tenants have the choice to rent privately or rent through an agent. All tenants know that by renting through an agency there will be fees to pay. At the end of the day tenants have the choice to pay!
I love how they have made this in to a big thing and want to make out like they are doing the right thing however this will have a big impact on many agencies and could end up resulting in a job losses and even some letting agents closing up.
Before they start tearing away at estate agents for charging maybe they should look closer to home and look at Stamp Duty Land Tax. For a start when buying a home it should not be charged on a % basis it should be the same for everyone, i.e a fixed fee not a %, but what really frustrates me is not only with it being a % charge then the more your house costs then the more you pay but the more expensive the house costs the high the % is.... Talk about greed!
Nuttall by name, nuttall by nature. UKIP, you are on a roll so stick to things you probably know more about.
Does this Paul Nutterl understand it costs letting agents money to reference people and create a tenancy agreement plus we have costs to run an office, do viewings etc and without profit we would fold