Why would you even consider it?
It's no secret that more and more landlords are raising concerns and having problems with letting agents. Are landlords to blame? Well no. To put it simply, landlords are disgruntled. They're tired of being 'bashed' and 'blamed' when many of them work hard to provide quality housing in the UK. So, should you dump your letting agent right now if you're a landlord having this experience?
What you should know
Here's some perspective. In 2022 alone, The Property Ombudsman (TPO) dealt with 14,000 complaints from landlords and tenants about letting agents. If this wasn't enough to question your letting agent - the PRS recently reported that complaints rose throughout 2023 by an average of 20% compared to 2022. So what are the top complaints for lettings?
Holding deposits
Poor service
Poor management
Tenancy payments
Rent collection
What should you do if you're a landlord experiencing this? Shop around. There are many companies which manage properties on behalf of landlords. Remember letting agents work on behalf of you and they need your property/properties for their business. So what should you look for in your next letting agent so history doesn't repeat itself?
Look for:
Transparency
Communication
Appreciation
Problems resolved
Guaranteed rent
Why?
Transparency and communication will mean that you're kept up to date with what is going on with your property, rather than information being concealed from you - leaving you blindsided.
Appreciation. You aim to provide quality housing in a currently broken housing market. In addition, without landlord properties, many UK individuals and families would be without homes - also letting agents would be out of business. So landlords deserve appreciation.
Problems resolved. There is nothing worse than when a problem is dragged out longer than necessary. Problem resolution in a timely and realistic manner will mean you won't face unnecessary stress and financial costs as a result.
Guaranteed rent. Receiving notice from your letting agent that your tenant is not paying, is nothing short of gut-wrenching. What makes this worse is that this can happen at any moment during the tenancy. Guaranteed rent means you will not have to worry about this and you can sleep peacefully when rent collection day rolls around.
How do we know?
How do we know all of this? We listen to our landlords and this is exactly how our relationships with them work.
We understand.
Even if we're not your choice - make sure your next letting agent has those 5 things.
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