Tougher action vital to help vulnerable tenants

RENTING YOUR home from a private landlord is still popular, accounting for one in five households. This key sector provides for 4.5m households who pay an average £959 monthly rent.

Most owners employ a letting agent to handle all the administration. The agency work can involve maintenance and checking on prospective tenants as well as ensuring properties are vacated efficiently.

Sadly, some agents excel at creating fictitious invoices. The scale and frequency of such misdemeanours prompted legislation in the form of the Tenant Fees Act.

Yet although this Act came into force in June last year, rogue letting agents are disregarding it. Tenants are still reporting that fees are being charged.

A typical example is a ‘checkout’ fee for vacating a property. Accounts into three-figure sums are being presented when leaving a home and those without knowledge of the law are tricked into paying.

Agents cannot invoice prospective lodgers for credit checks, tenant references, renewal arrangements or their administration. Their adamantine behaviour should not perhaps be a surprise.

It’s a legal requirement for agents to be registered with a redress scheme. There is a Property Ombudsman which provides a mediation service.

It received 341 complaints last year alleging unlawful fees and has awarded over £4,500 to 14 out of 21 cases it has investigated. The highest sum under the new Act was £1,643 plus £100 compensation. It could name and shame but places no such information on its website.

It is high time related trade bodies stressed such behaviour is unacceptable and to remind all letting agents that they are liable for penalties up to £30,000.

Rather than rely upon the Property Ombudsman, any tenant in doubt should contact the local authority Trading Standards department which has far more experience in tackling suboptimal characters.