Tennancy Agreement. Renewal Fee's Help Needed.

[OwL]

Me and my lovely Missus Fay currently rent a property from a landlord through a 'letting Agency'.
We first started renting in May 2013, we have just received a letter from our letting agency demanding £90.00 for a rent renewal fee!!

Utterly scandalous. Of course we are going to question it as this is obscene.
Just wanted to get some facts together from anyone who may know how legitimate these 'fee's' are (which interestingly are illegal in Scotland)

So far my Internet search into the subject has given me only some limited information.

I wonder if anyone else out there has any intimate knowledge of this subject and could help us. I will be replying via email so I would lime to include something 'wordy' to scare them off because so far I have read that the legality of such fees is dubious.......

Please help. The property I rent is in England by the way.

[Trev]

You will need to look through your original contract and their terms and conditions.
It's likely that this renewal charge was included in the small print.

Wrong, in my opinion but I'd be supprised if you have any recourse

If it isn't in the original documentation then you should be able to get it overturned.  A call or visit to the local Citizens Advice might prove helpful

[MJKERR]

Equally, look to see if the original payments included an arrangement fee

[NeMo]

It's pretty standard, unfortunately. You can of course say you won't pay, but if it was in the original tenancy agreement, that'll be a sticky wicket. On the other hand, if this fee has come out of the blue and you were given to notice of it in the contract, that'll be a whole other situation!

In my twenties like most people I lived in rented property, and when I went to live in America for a few years, I rented out my house. I can assure you that either way the letting agent gets the best deal! At the end of the day it's a "like it our lump it" situation. If you're already in a rented home, you probably don't want to move just for the sake of a relatively small fee; if you're renting out your home and you're on the other side of the world, you don't want to go through the rigmarole of finding a new letting agency.

Have a word with the nice folks on the moneysavingexpert.com forum. I've got some stellar advice on there in the past. Of course, you'd have to take their advice for what it is, and any choices you make will be at your own risk.

Cheers, NeMo

[CarriageShed]

To be honest I doubt you have any recourse to complain legally. These fees will certainly have been included in the tenancy agreement somewhere. I've just come out of four years of rental in London, and renewal fees are commonplace and not especially cheap. You would be looking at a bare minimum of £25 with one of the better landlords, but £90 doesn't sound like it's beyond the bounds of believability. Sorry about that.

[Lawrence]

Dave, SWMBO is Office Manager for a lettings agents, it is totally legal and is probably in your contract somewhere.  What she suggests is you go for a 12 month contract instead of 6 month so you are only paying it once a year.
Sorry mate but it will be in the small print somewhere.

[CarriageShed]

Lawrence's advice is very sound if you know you're going to be there for a year. Watch out for tie-ins, though, and penalties for ending the agreement early. You may lose a sizeable chunk of your deposit even if you act entirely reasonably, give two months notice, and provide full help with the viewing process. They have you over a barrel and many of them (if not most) will extract every possible penny from you (excepting Lawrence's SWMBO of course). 

[EtchedPixels]

Dave, SWMBO is Office Manager for a lettings agents, it is totally legal and is probably in your contract somewhere.  What she suggests is you go for a 12 month contract instead of 6 month so you are only paying it once a year.
Sorry mate but it will be in the small print somewhere.

If it is only buried in the depths of the small print you've probably got a case if it was not brought to your attention by the letting agent originally (and they can show so), or in the covering agreement letter setting out what will be owed and to whom. If it's in the covering letters or a clear breakdown of costs etc you were given then you've probably got no leg to stand on I'm afraid.

For end consumers burying a likely fee in the depths of small print booklets is not generally held to be sufficient. This in fact is the basis of the pending class action lawsuit over mortage rises (Selig v Bank of Ireland).

One option you have if you decide to pay is to state you believe that the payment is unjustified and the terms were not properly explained and you are therefore paying "under duress" and reserve the right to seek to reclaim the money. That stops them arguing that you accepted it was lawful by paying it.

Definitely talk to Citizens advice if after having looked at the documents you were originally given the information was only buried deep in the paperwork. At that point you have a good argument it fails the test of  fairness and good faith (ie the agent set out with the intent you wouldn't notice). CAB can probably also advise you if it is better to pay under duress and sign the next 6 months then stab them in the back (figuratively!), or to do it the other way around.

There are some other things you can do depending upon your landlord's interest and talking to the landlord - including turning it into a statutory period assured tenancy, at which point the same tenancy agreement is simply continued on an agreed period by period basis. This cuts out the "renewal fees" for both parties. Letting agents don't like this because they can't charge you £90 for pressing "print" every six months and probably your landlord even more (often £200+) for the same thing. Very expensive printer paper they use

But if you find you can't beat them, don't forget to consider if you wish to pay them cash. A bag of 180 50p pieces will keep the buggers quiet counting them all (especially at 5pm) and writing you a receipt acknowledging the payment was under duress.

Of course you have to weigh up whether the £180 a year plus the rent is still a good deal for where you are, and if you want to stay long term and so on. If it's a case of "you suck but it's still a good deal" maybe you just have to go with the flow until you plan to leave. Then you can string them along and leave on the last day and not give an advance notice which is usually lawful for a fixed term tenancy and really p***es the agent off 

Alan

[OwL]

Guys-

Thanks for all your replies. They have all really helped. I have checked the contract and it is in the small print (B######s )

It basically means I have to drop my trousers and take 'this one' this time round. The plan was to stay for 18 months-2 years before we have enough deposit for a house.

I think we will just have another 6 months here then push off next summer. Its getting too near Christmas to move

Now im wiser to the renting game, I will be more careful in the future and double my efforts to tuck some more money away so we can get our own place.

Thanks for all of your advice,

[Sprintex]

Have rented numerous properties since 1997 and one nearly caught us out, luckily when we contacted the local Trading Standards dept they apparently had a very large file on the Letting Agent and were only too willing to add our evidence to it before paying them a visit

Much more careful now, have to be as we have NO prospect of ever buying our own property 

Having said that, thread locked at the request of the OP.