Can letting agents charge for a reference?
Letting agents can charge landlords a fee for referencing tenants Referencing tenants takes both time and money. Therefore, a landlord or landlord should not start the referencing process until the potential tenant has been selected. I’m an LL and hate dealing with them. I don’t charge references for one of my previous tenants if they were good.
I haven’t had a bad one (touch wood) yet, so I didn’t have to refuse to provide a reference. Do the agents “manage the property for the LL or do they simply rent it out? If they don’t make it, your LL should provide the reference as they have no knowledge of your payments. It explicitly states that reference fees are prohibited. I think the only thing a rental agency can ask for before moving in is a deposit.
You will be asked to provide hints to show that you can afford the property and that you are a good tenant. This means that you can no longer ask tenants to cover the costs of their own referencing. You also won’t be able to charge mandatory check-in, inventory, cleaning, or management fees. Your landlord or broker may charge you a fee if they agree to terminate your tenancy early or leave without notice.
If you rent through a rental agent, do so before you give them money. If you fail a credit check, you may not get your money back. The policy change will prohibit landlords and landlords from charging tenants for services such as credit checks and inventory, many of which are often seen as exploitative. If your landlord or landlord wants a more detailed assessment of your suitability for a property, they will hire a specialist tenant reference agency that not only performs a credit check, but also employer references, past landlord references, affordability calculations, and more. For too long Londoners have been forced to pay sky-high rental fees every time they move and even when they renew their leases.
I’m aware of the reference fee ban, but I’m not sure if my previous rental agent, who provided a reference for a new property with a separate agent, falls under this umbrella. Rental agents can no longer charge tenants fees for viewing new, potential properties under the ban. Tenants came forward for another 6 months and the day after the agent called and harassed them to ask the rent (so they would receive more commission). If you live with the same agent, they should accept your current references and be without new ones and fees.
The tenant reference agency charges the landlord or landlord with the direct execution of the checks. Your rental agent and some rental companies will run a credit check to see if you’ve had trouble paying bills in the past. Letting agents were criticized for charging extortionate management fees to tenants, which led tenants to actively seek out properties managed by private landlords. The ban applies to insured short tenants, student rentals and tenants who live with a private landlord.
Some landlords or landlords perform these checks themselves by manually contacting credit reference agencies, employers, landlords, and other official bodies to verify a tenant’s details. The other aspect of this is that rental agents are not allowed to charge fees in Scotland, as is the case in England.
