What is going on with the high fee's that some letting agents in Sheffield charge prospective tenants for applying to rent one of their properties? :o The highest I've seen so far is £160 which is not refundable should your application fail for any reason.

Even more worrying is the insurance which some insist you buy, along with giving them up to a month and a half's rent as a bond. This insurance is claimed to cover the landlord's fixtures and fittings, but why should I be responsible for insuring those? And why can I not arrange this externally, it has to be through them? :confused: At first I thought this was just one company that I'd heard about on here, but it seems to be spreading and it's really worrying. I am trying to avoid the agents which charge these fee's but with time running out to find somewhere I may have no choice but to fork out a ridiculous amount of money :(

Does anybody else have any experience of which agents are good or bad in this area? I by no means know what all of their policies are, just a few which I have had dealings with recently.

I take it you have been to Mike Jolly Estates then?

From experience I would advise you to avoid:

Mike Jolly
Saxton Mee
ELR

(the first one for ridiculously high fees, the last 2 for their appaling customer service/ability to phone you back etc.

We are viewing a house with 'The Letting Company' on sunday. They too haver been extremely useless when it comes to calling you back etc, but we really like sound of the place, so may have to just put up with the crap service - it seems like th enorm anyway.

The fees that the estate agents in Sheffield charge are a con, it's a simple as that - it's money for nothing.

I would steer clear of Blundells, because things like cleaning a property before you move in, giving you the full set of keys, and offering up the correct contract to sign seem to be a little beyond their capabilities. In my experience.

Originally posted by scatterheart
Even more worrying is the insurance which some insist you buy,

I wonder if the FSA know they're using this sales tactic?

Originally posted by 1Man&hisBMW
I take it you have been to Mike Jolly Estates then?

Mike Jolly Estates are the ones who I read about on this forum yes ;)

But since then I have been sent Lewis Wadsworth's catalogue of rental properties and that has a page at the back which states that along with an extortionate bond you must also purchase their insurance! It's a shame because they have a couple of houses which I'd otherwise be interested in, but I simply cannot afford such a high immediate outlay :( And I don't see why I should have to buy it in the first place :confused:

It's a real con, particularly when it is implied that the insurance is to cover the landlord's fixtures / fittings as it is usually a requirement of any buy to let mortgage to have adequate insurance already in place and this will often have an element for fixtures and fittings in it already...

I let some properties and used to use some of these agents but was horrified when i found out about the fees they were charging tenants as they were already charging me a % in the first place just for sticking a couple of ads around and drawing up a tenancy agreement! I try to steer clear of agents now and do my own advertising on the net / paper.

I do think the bond is fair thou as after all you are giving someone possession of something worth hundreds of thousands of pounds - it's just a pity that some landlord's abuse this and do not return it if there is no damage and give everyone a bad name.

Oh I absolutely agree about the bond, although if the agent's are performing regular checks of the property, as they all claim they will do, I think one month's rent should suffice. Charging up to £800 bond for a £450pcm property is just more than most people can afford in one go :(