How To Manage Landlord/Agency Relationships

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.