Letting Agents charges for the privilege of drawing-up a tenancy agreement

[buildersmate]

My son is being asked to stump up �350 for this. It covers credit reference checks and drawing-up an agreement. ARLA appears to have no recommended scale of charges. What is the experience of others in paying this charge? �350 represents the equivalent of just over half-a-months rent. Is this the norm?

[luckyeight]

Unfortunately this is absolutely standard practise. Letting agents are very much free to charge as much as they can get away with when arranging the let of a property. Usually this administrative fee reflects a month;s rent so maybe your son is getting a good deal, unbelivably. Obviously the fee doesn't reflect the true cost of this administration, and is just a way for the agency to make money.

[itsallyellow]

I was charged �115 for this per person and then the deposit on top of that. The prices they charge are rediculous and in no way represent the admin involved ( �2 for the credit check and the price of 6 sheets of A4 to print it on to and the 5minutes it take some uneducated fruit to import a generic document and add your son's name on to it). My recommendations to him would be to look for another property with another letting agent and ask about fees upfront. you should pay no more than �150 for this anywhere.

[cascarelli]

Ok, the type of credit check that most landlords would do costs between �15 and �80 per person. Most landlords pay about �30. There would be admin charges on top of this if using an agency but �350 seems very steep and personally I'd avoid them as you'd probably find that their charges throughout the tenancy are equally high.

A private landlord would probably only charge the �30 and some dont even pass on this cost whilst an agency would charge maybe �100 to �150.

I'm not an agent but I do understand that they can't do this for nothing, it's their business after all. My advice would be to look around for more reasonable costs.

[buildersmate]

Thanks all. Pretty consistent advice. The above alerted us to ask what other charges there might be later. Its highlighted a �40 per person charge to renew the tenancy agreement after 6 months (many don't charge this at all) plus costs of checking the inventory at termination.
The point about a high initial charges can lead to greater shopping-list of charges later is well made.