One of the trickiest questions of all for tenants is whether or not they want to do business direct with a private landlord, or whether they’d prefer to use an agency. At the very top end of the market, most property is too expensive to be offered as assured shorthold tenancies – these types of units are managed almost exclusively by agents on entirely different contracts.

Money matters

Where tenants are paying more than £25,000 per year (£481 per week collectively) in rent, they cannot legally be offered an assured shorthold tenancy. However as rents climb and people increasingly club together to make property affordable, the £25,000 maximum limit for assured shorthold leases is creeping even into the top end of student housing. Any property with rent more than that maximum of £25,000 per year whose tenants have been given an assured shorthold lease should take immediate legal advice. Before you start crying, many, many solicitors offer a half-hour free service. Besides that, Housing Law groups exist in every large city. However, the overwhelming majority of rentals do not fall into this super priced bracket.

Options for the majority: the agent or the private landlord

Broadly, if you want to find accommodation on the high street you’ll be using agency management through their many branches, just teeming with rentals. If you prefer to use classified advertising to find a home, which can often be cheaper, you’re more likely to be dealing with your landlord direct. Again, the direct supply these days is tremendous.

The rental sector these days is huge. A behemoth. Enormous. The range of management styles reflects this. Some independent landlords manage property brilliantly, without any need for agencies or their costs, which many of us believe actively discourage the very budget conscious type of individuals we are actively seeking for tenants. Many other landlords haven’t the time to manage what is, for them, a part-time investment and so use agencies. And every single tenant will have a different experience in whatever type of management they plump for.

• Agencies are expensive. Their upfront costs can be astronomical.
• On the other hand, some private landlords who don’t make all these upfront demands simply cannot get their heads around leaving a tenant in peace; let alone respecting the ‘right of quiet enjoyment’ which tenants buy with their rent.

Advising people what to choose or what they’ll like best is like pretending to be able to predict someone’s favourite flavour. Statistically and practically impossible. So I won’t bother. Instead, I will say the same thing that I’ve said so often before. This is a major financial commitment – use your commonsense.

Meeting the management

You get an opportunity to meet the management every single time you go to view a property. Either you’ll be shown around by an agent or by a private landlord. Whoever you meet is likely to be your ‘management’. (This can get a bit confused with agencies who often use viewers to show people around – but make sure that you meet the people who matter some time before you decide who to do business with.) Every time you rent a property, you’ll be making a vitally important judgment call based on gut instinct and a few obvious pointers, like:

• Do you feel happy with the person who’s responsible for the management?
• Have they bothered to clean up before you viewed?
• Do they seem familiar with the processes?
• Are they well prepared?
• Will they be providing an inventory?
• Can they answer your questions about local authority charges and other costs or don’t they have a clue?
• Since April 2007 an excellent new question if you’re seriously considering taking the unit is ‘which service will be used to hold the deposit’?
• Are they confidently showing you around and explaining how things work, what documents are required, etc?
• Or do they stand, uninterested, by the door?

Landlords who care are usually quite keen to show their unit’s advantages off – they’ve got something for sale and are looking to close a profitable deal.

Go to every viewing with a list of questions that you think are reasonable and try to get a reasonable response (above is a good start, add your own concerns). If answers are not forthcoming, ask yourself seriously if you want that unit enough to take on such a commitment on a scanty response. People who aren’t interested before they get your name on a contract won’t become considerate landlords/agents after they have your name on a valuable document like a lease.

Find property that suits your lifestyle

• If it has a huge garden, do you want to spend every weekend mowing the lawn?
• If the high spec kitchen has beautiful wooden worktops, do you want to spend whole days oiling them to keep them watertight?
• How will you stand contractually if you do neither?
• If the property is cheap because the heating is all electric – can you afford the much higher bills?
• If the property has an electric meter (especially pre-pay card types) has the meter been calibrated by the electricity supplier to cover a previous debt by the last tenant? If so, it will need returning to the usual rates before you begin paying.
• If it’s an oil-fired heating system, where do you order oil – but not enough to last way beyond your own tenancy?
• If there’s insufficient heating, do you really want to use the landlord’s lethal paraffin heater?
• If the third bedroom’s too small to be any use do you want to pay extra for it?

And on, and on. Before you sign a thing ask and then think.

Making that judgement call

We all make instantaneous judgements all the time. It’s an instinct thing. Trust it. If the landlord in front of you makes your skin crawl find somewhere else. If the agent can’t be bothered, makes you feel that they’re doing you a favour by turning out, thinks you’re a bore to have important questions – find somewhere else. If there’s no adequate reply to who you’d call in emergencies – find somewhere else. You are trying to rent a home, not a car for the weekend. There are things that you need to know are in place because badly managed homes are a nightmare for tenants, who are left holding all the problems with none of the control. Beware the young buccaneering landlord who’s only willing to give you a mobile phone number. Get a landline and check it works before you sign leases.

Management of rental property requires organisation, planning and consistency. Someone to call when you lose your keys. Someone to fix the hot water system. You’re not allowed to fix things yourself and have already paid for things to work so look for an organised manager – either agency or competent independent – and you shouldn’t go too far wrong.

Use your commonsense. Look at how existing tenants are treated and you’ll get a fairly good flavour of your future as a tenant there.

Understanding the role of agencies

Agencies are not voluntary organisations who run services for love. They are commercial middlemen who charge whatever they can, to whoever seems likeliest to pay it, because that’s commerce. Understanding that will allow you to behave like informed users of the services they offer. So charges will be made for inventory preparation, and for the final inspection when you move out and at every other single opportunity that presents itself in between and after you leave.

All cost top whack – many tenants are charged more than £200 simply for the drawing up and signing of a lease. Understand that from the outset and do your sums accordingly.

Understanding the role of independent landlords

Again, commerce not community service is the goal of any self-respecting private landlord. Where they differ from agencies is that their costs (not organisational abilities) should be lower because they don’t pay middlemen. Few private landlords charge set up fees for the right to take a lease. Most use legal stationers’ leases, which cost a couple of pounds, not a couple of hundred. Nor will many consider charging you for three signatures. In a competitive market, few private landlords try to make a profit on references, they use the reference process to safeguard their investment, not for profit.

What you must understand here is the scale of operations you’re trying to compare. For most private landlords with, say, a dozen or so properties, a few pounds referencing profit are utterly immaterial – and not worth deterring anyone over. For an agency with many hundreds, even thousands of properties trading each year, these small additional charges everywhere add up to huge revenue generators.

Instead, the private landlord makes his/her money from charging you enough rent to make a profit over and above their own costs. Some will charge inventory fees because they genuinely do take time to compile, agree on and check out. (You need to ask exactly what charges any independent has in mind before agreeing to accept anything.) For expensive units, many will suggest sharing the cost of a completely independent inventory – so no profit there either. Plus, for what it’s worth, I’ve never met one independent landlord who would charge a good tenant wanting to stay beyond six months some ‘lease extension fee’ for the privilege of having a good customer pay for longer.

Rent collections

Just because agents are happy to assume that your direct debit will actually arrive every month, don’t expect all independent landlords to take that view – especially experienced ones. Many landlords live on the income from their units, they’re not all some distant investment portfolio but often produce our living. For a multitude of good reasons, many independents prefer the weekly/monthly direct contact with our tenants that rent collection brings. Tenants often have relatively trivial issues they want to raise – like a dripping tap that’s keeping them awake every night that might not sound a serious fault in itself, but is causing real frustration. Other times tenants prefer discussing problems about a noisy neighbour with their landlord, sooner than banging on the ceiling.

For any number of reasons, rent collection is still remarkably common, popular and convenient. Many tenants prefer to be able to pay less, more often, too. Plus, not everyone wants to phone some call-centre miles away about a broken lock and hope someone shows to repair it.

Of course, you may hate the idea. Like all your other options, these are choices that you make as you work your way through our vast marketplace.

If it’s often cheaper, is there a downside?

Yup. Where disputes arise, you have to discuss these direct with your landlord – there’s no buffer. Of course, most tenancies don’t have disputes. There’s a difference between reporting a fault and chasing someone’s tail for a couple of days and all out warfare. Nevertheless, some tenants really are willing to pay a string of supplementary charges for the opportunity to arbitrate through a third party – even one who works for the landlord. Unfortunately, many landlords behave unreasonably just because they can make an agent do their dirty work. Being a letting agent is certainly profitable, but it isn’t always comfortable to play pig in the middle.

Many student landlords are models to us all. They know and like young people, enjoy the contact with them, understand their financial realities and their reluctance to dust until moving out day. Very few successful student landlords need agents. Huge numbers of landlords enjoy modest contact with their tenants. Many want to do a good job and take their responsibilities very seriously. These buildings are, after all, seriously expensive assets that must earn their keep. And no independent landlord wants to have empty buildings so they tend to look after their tenants – because that’s how they earn their money. However, beware the landlord who talks too much and listens too little when you first meet them. They won’t change.

But isn’t an agency just more competent?

I couldn’t possibly say – you tell me.

Property management with tenants in place requires co-operation between parties. You want to be safe and it’s the management’s responsibility to see that you are. I can’t imagine a single independent landlord handing over every key to their precious investment without retaining an emergency only spare. But don’t allow your landlord to wander willy nilly through your life just because they have a key. If they begin doing so, politely but firmly tell them that you have a right to 24 hours’ written notice when they need to come inside and that they need a reason to disturb your privacy. They may not like it – but they certainly can’t argue with it.

What costs can I expect to pay?

Taking on strangers to let them live (guaranteed for six months minimum) does require some background checks that the tenant is expected to pay for to validate their suitability. Expect charges for:

• References.
• Parental guarantor forms if required.
• Credit checks and bank and employer references. Agencies charge all kinds of fees. As these numbers begin to mount up, agents often throw in other ‘unexpected fees’, which can again amount to considerable sums of money. – Check-in costs. – Inventory fees. – Lease signing fees.

On and on goes the list of charges that a tenant is expected to meet with a smile.

Buried in the small print can be a variety of other hidden goodies for agents. Watch out for things you’re signing up to pay for! Add them up. If you don’t want or can’t afford these, try finding a decent private landlord. There are thousands and thousands of them. And again, ask even the friendliest of landlords what up front fees there will be to move in.

The reference game

Sealed bids

That costly lease renewal

After your first fixed term comes to an end and, if you’re happy to stay in the unit, if the agent tries to insist that you sign up for a whole new lease or tries charging you for a lease extension or some other such thing, when there are no changes being made to the terms (say a rent increase), try explaining to them that by simply staying put and paying the rent you’re quite happy to let your lease become a statutory periodic tenancy without any more paperwork, thank you very much all the same (all explained in more detail later in Lesson 7 on leases). It saves committing you to a whole full six months’ liability, while still safeguarding both your and your landlord’s interests nicely. It’s the perfect solution that agents don’t suggest because they’re used to simply charging and no one asking why – let alone what legal necessity any of this has, beyond being another fee generator.

Get yourself a copy of the government’s fabulous free booklet called the Assured and Assured Shorthold Tenancies: A guide for tenants. Call 0870 1226 236 and ask for one, the product code is 97 HC 228C. Better still, copy in hand, look up the Statutory Periodic page 19 and show it to your landlord/agent. Give it a shot. It may even save you some fees.

Maintaining good relationships

Jaw jaw is better than war war

Whoever you rent from, always do your best to establish some kind of rapport. Discussion is always better than confrontation. For those of you renting through agents remember that the agency may well privately agree with your point of view, however they are employed by the landlord and a landlord veto on repairs stops any agency dead in its tracks.

Letting agency organisations

Some letting agents have joined voluntary associations. Most haven’t. The lettings industry is sadly without a meaningful regulator or universal rules, but if your agent is a member of any voluntary group and you are having problems, they may be able to advise you although they won’t directly intervene on your behalf.

Behind the scenes relationships

Unbeknown to tenants, landlords and agents are often in major dispute behind the scenes about how many deductions are to be made from your deposit (all this will soon be ironed out as landlords and agents are obliged to safeguard deposits after April 2007). Agencies can find that, while they may think that a full deposit return is due, the landlord is adamantly demanding deductions. As stated before, agents are employed by landlords, not tenants. Many agents have given a written undertaking to their landlords that they will not release deposit refunds without the landlord’s consent (again due to change soon but still in existence on current deposits which will hang over for quite some time). However, these kinds of demands from landlords can place agents in very tricky positions.

And finally

Work out a realistic budget: how much for this, for that, for the other, etc. Ask your questions, reasonable people will understand that you’re being sensible.

Unreasonable/unrealistic/uninformed people on either side of the contract make renting/letting harder work than anyone wants or needs.

Then it’s down to you

Don’t expect to be mollycoddled through life just because you’re paying rent – even quite a lot of it. In a famous legal judgment Lord Denning set the benchmark when he ruled that a tenant must do the little things around the place that a tenant ought reasonably to do. So, screw the door handle back on yourself if it’s worked itself a bit loose. Don’t call every time a light bulb or a fuse blows. And remember, fridges stop working if you never defrost them, washing machines won’t spin if the filter’s blocked up with loose change and dishwashers won’t leave your dishes shiny if you never clean them out.

If your landlord/agent refuses to carry out essential repairs, after a couple of prompting calls write to them, send your concerns recorded delivery, keep the postal slip and keep a copy for your records. Landlords are often busy people so they don’t jump every time someone calls over something like a dripping tap. However, major repairs like heating failure should be under serious landlord/agent review within 24 hours. Likewise, if your agent is being chary about fixing that boiler – ring twice then write and complain formally. It may not work, but it’s the best shot I can give you in a very uneven service like rentals. Like it or not, you are the only quality control in the rental market.