Is agent charging disproportionate fees?

[Firefly100]

Any help on this would be very gratefully received!

 

My husband and I took out a rental in January and now need to leave early as we have found a property to purchase. We'll only have been in the property 3 months on leaving and signed a 12 month contract with a 6 month break clause.

 

I telephoned the lettings agent this morning to inform them of our plans and asked them if they could find out if the landlord was amenable to us leaving early if we paid any admin fees for sourcing and referencing a new tenant and also that obviously we'd continue to pay rent up until the new tenant moved in.

 

The agent basically told me that the fee to break early would be 10% of the 12 months rent plus an admin fee for setting up a new contract fee - basically about £2,000! The agent said the the landlord would have paid this fee up front when asking them to find a new tenant and that this is standard practice.

 

The terms and conditions for this are apparently in the contract between the landlord and the agency which the landlord would have signed when agreeing for the agency to manage his property and by leaving early we are forcing the landlord to be in breach of this contract hence the charges. We were never advised of these clauses however and they are not present in our tenancy agreement.

 

10% of the whole years rent seems a disproportionately large charge especially as there would be no dip in the rent as we'd continue to pay until a new tenant took over - is there anything we can do to say that this is unfair?

 

Also - we have a 6 month break clause in our contract so if the agent is allowed to charge these fees, should they not be charging us only for 10% of 6 months worth of rent?

 

The whole situation seems outrageous as the landlord is not getting any money back and the agency just seem to be making a fortune from the situation instead of charging a reasonable fee for the admin involved.

 

Grateful for all advice / ideas / explanations.

[MrShed]

How much is your monthly rental? How long prior to the 6 month break clause would you actually physically leave?

[Firefly100]

Thanks so much for getting back to me!

 

Monthly rental is £1300 and we plan to leave 3 months before the 6 months break clause.

 

(To clarify further - tenancy commenced 17th Jan and we'd terminate 17th April 3 months in)

[blacksheep1979]

If you are agreeing to pay rent till a new tenant is found and all fees involved in finding/checking out this tennant that could take a period of over a month - which would be pushing you near to the £2k mark anyway.

 

If you are in breech of contract (which you would be by leaving early) then you have to pay all the landlords associated costs, which if he stayed with that agency looks like being aprox £2k. The only other real route I see is paying the remaining 3 months rent, but this costs £3.9k.

[MrShed]

Unfortunately I have to agree with BS. In actuality you are getting off lightly - they COULD charge you £3.9k(although they would have to attempt to mitigate their loss by reletting). Have you thought about assigning the property IE finding someone to take over your tenancy?

[MrShed]

It should be noted however, that you do NOT have to pay what they have said, you can opt to terminate the contract and pay the actual costs. This would consist of the reletting costs and the rent that would have been due whilst the property is void. In reality this is probably going to be at least the figure they have stated, if not more. What I am saying basicallyis that the figure they have given is in all likelihood less than they would be legally entitled to.

[Firefly100]

Thank you both for your advice!

[anonadams]

the reletting costs and fees the letting agency receives is usually £300 for finding tenant fees and then 5%-12% of monthly rent depending on what the landlord has agreed to with the agent.

Also the Landlord is going to have to pay for any cosmetic repairs and wait till a new tenant arrives to cover his expenses. This depend on the area for letting opportunity.

At the worst they can keep your deposit for breach of contract seen as their is no clauses in your tenancy terms for extra charges. What do they do when someone does a moonlight flick and cancels the DD. Nothing as they have no forwarding address.

[MrShed]

There is no ability for a landlord to keep a deposit for breach of contract...