It has been another crazy start to the year for the lettings industry.
Ever changing legislation always keeping landlords on their toes.
The Energy Performance Certificate will only effect some properties which have a low grade. Please check your EPC, making sure it is in date as it only lasts 10 years and mainly, making sure it is higher than grade E.
New tenancies from April 2018 wont be allowed if the grade is lower than E. Also existing tenancies have to bring the grading to a minimum of E by April 2020 to comply with the regulations.
For agents, the tenant Fee Ban will be coming into force most likely in October 2019. We understand why the government are enforcing this. We charge £140 per property (no other tenant charges) but most agents charge around £300/£400. Which from a tenants point of view is a very high cost.
We believe the fee should be capped at say, £100, as work still needs to be done to let a property. Travelling to viewings, time spent and the paperwork involved is a lot of work. We can only see rents going up even more. Good for landlords but not so good for tenants. A cap may prevent rents shooting up, however the government are firm on a complete ban. Only time will tell how it really pans out.
Thank you for reading and we wish you the best for the remainder of 2018.
