Landlords are you being charged by Agents more than you should be for maintenance work?
Back in 2013 a property maintenance firm which said it was asked, by one of the biggest letting agencies in the country, to pay a 20% commission for work done on landlords’ properties turned whistle-blower on the whole practice.
The maintenance firm said, at the time, that the practice by which letting agents pass over to landlords the costs of the work but then, unknown to the landlord, charge the maintenance firm a commission, is a letting agent scam which they wanted to be exposed to the public.
I remember reading about this back then and thinking why would a letting agent put an extra 20% on an invoice to the landlord and then be able to keep 20% of that money for themselves. How naïve of me!!! They didn’t invoice the landlord. The maintenance firm invoiced the landlord but then had to pay the agent 20% of the cost direct to the agent for “choosing” them to do the work – yeah right! It’s a pretty underhand way of working and what’s worse is that the 20% commission is built into the invoices for the landlord therefore increasing the cost of the job by 20%!
Keystone have never charged anything extra on top of what the maintenance company or person charges and it is written into our contract as a legal guarantee that no extra charges are paid to us or charged to the landlord. We’ve always taken it for granted and never given it a great deal of thought since. However, in the last couple of months we have been approached by 3 maintenance companies asking if we needed help with the maintenance of our rental properties. I always say I’d give anyone a chance and took their names and contact details. However when I explained that we had maintenance people but may be able to put some work their way two of these firms asked me how much commission we wanted for them to get our contracts. I was shocked and when they mentioned that they worked for other agents who took a commission from them I said we didn’t take any commission or allow any unreasonable costs for our landlords. They were as shocked that we didn’t take anything as I was that this practice still goes on! Keystone do not want to be part of anything so disingenuous and deceitful to our landlords.
What I fail to understand with this practise is you are already paying a monthly fee to a letting agent to “manage” their property…when a management issue comes up like a maintenance issue of some sort they want to then in a roundabout way charge you again for dealing with the said management issue!
I would say to all landlords out there just make sure you are not being ripped off. Check your invoices and get a promise off your letting agent that they are not accepting any commission payments from maintenance firms at your expense. We have a brilliant team of local contractors who charge a fair fee for their work and we have made a legal pledge in our landlord contract that we never have and never will resort to this kind of practise.
It’s hard enough for private sector landlords at the moment with extra taxes and the rent smart wales licensing without being ripped off by the agents they have put their trust in.
By all means if you have a property to rent and wish to speak to one of our team call the office and we'll be happy to discuss our services with you - 01244 836636. Alternatively fill in the form and we will call you.
Kind Regards
Glenys Roberts
Lettings Manager