Despite the housing minister MP Gavin Barwell saying in September that it was a “bad idea” it was confirmed in the Chancellor’s, MP Phillip Hammond’s Autumn Statement of 23^rd November that letting agents’ fees levied on tenants will be banned *as soon as possible. Prime Minister Theresa May has also voted against such a ban, twice, in the Commons.

Richard Price, executive director at the UK Association of Letting Agents (UKALA), said: ‘A ban on agent fees may prevent tenants from receiving a bill at the start of the tenancy, but the unavoidable outcome will be an increase in the proportion of costs which will be met by landlords, which in turn will be passed on to tenants through higher rents.’ 

The Letting People are proud members of UKALA, since 2002, and also members of government-accredited redress schemes – and, as such we are a company that is at the forefront of best practice.  Obviously we will continue to have to charge a fair and reasonable fee for the work that is done to maintain our high quality of services in full compliance for both the landlord and the tenant.  

Sadly, some less scrupulous letting and estate agents may have charged over-the-top tenant and landlord fees for many years – and have thereforebrought the lettings industry into disrepute. We will continue to work with our landlords to ensure that our fees remain reasonable and competitive – but sadly it is expected that the tenant services – currently covered by the tenant’s fees – will result in these costs being transferred to our landlords.  We will notify you as soon as possible what this will mean in terms of increased costs for you to consider inevitable reasonable rent increases.

*The Letting People await a clear directive on this – no exact details and timescales have been released yet.  As soon as we have clear guidelines on the exact measures that will be taken, we will announce these as quickly as possible.

If you would like to voice your opinion to your local MP about these

changes – please do get in touch with us.