Fees charged to tenants are now banned under new laws

From 1st June 2019 Estate Agents, Letting Agents and Landlords will no longer be able to charge tenants application or moving in fees that have been charged for many years.

Many agents, especiially larger organisations were charging particulalry high application fees in order to chase as much revenue as possible; and as a result these fees that ran to many hundreds of pounds have been outlawed by the UK Government.

This means that tenants can apply for a property and not face a charge for doing so.

There are some permitted payments and these are:

Rent.      The usual amount one pays to rent the property each month.

Bond.      An amount of money held by the agent or landlord until the end of the tenancy from which monies can be withheld if there are any repairs or missing rent payments.  However this is limited to 5 weeks rent.  Bonds that are already in the hands of an agent or landlord in excess of 5 weeks rent will have to be adjusted by the 1st May 2020.

A holding deposit.      Landlords and Agents may ask for a holding deposit of no more than one week's rent to secure a property, but this has to be refunded from the first month's rent.  Agents and Landlords can refuse to repay this amount if a tenant lies on their application or fails a credit score unexpectedly or indeed pulls out of the rental.

Late rent fees.     Landlords can charge a late rent fee to tenants, collected by the agent, to cover expense incurred in collecting late rental payments.  This is limited to a reasonable fee and cannot be a method of extorting large sums from late payers.

For information on the tenant fee ban and how is affects you, please contact our office.