…why a landlord needs the services of a lettings agent. What a landlord needs is the services of a good agent to facilitate their (the landlord’s) property being rented out to the right people for the right price-for all parties. Thank you for pointing out the blindingly obvious Chesh, I hear you mutter. My pleasure. Further to the earlier blog that featured ‘We’ll have the pennies out of a dead man’s eyes” Agency, we were contacted by a landlord who had a tenant in his property that had been found by an agent on a ‘let only’ basis as the landlord was of the opinion that he “knew best” regarding letting his house. The tenant that had been found for him was four months in arrears, had a Dr Dolittle thing going on in the property that was now “wrecked”. Most excellent. The subsequent conversation then took place:
GC: “Mr Landlord, have you served the Section 8 Notice?”
Mr L: “What’s that?”
GC: Ohhhhhhhk. $%^& me. “Have you carried out the bi-monthly inspections?”
Mr L: “They would not let us in, so we had to go when they were at work.”
GC: Double $%^& me. “Ah, good. So you know where they work and can issue papers at their place of work?”
Mr L: “No, I haven’t a clue where they work.”
GC: Triple $%^& me. “No problem, do you want me to get them out of the property?”
Mr L: “No. The original ‘find only’ agent has re-housed them. Can you believe it?”
Actually, yes.
GC: “Would you like us to manage the property so all this hassle is taken away from you and all you have to do is look at the monthly rental sitting in your bank account?”
Mr L: “You must be joking mate. I am not paying you £50 a month to do f”£$ all.”
After I had pointed out that this approach had left him £2000 in the hole and that wasn’t including the cleaning and redecorating of the property, I respectfully suggested that we were not the agent for him.
Trust me, when as a landlord you-through a combination of luck/judgement-get the right tenant without using the services of an agent, it is wholly understandable to ask, Why use an agent, this is easy? When things do go wrong, that is when a good agent earns their corn, with the emphasis on earning it. Errant/missing tenants, missed payments, boiler’s having a nervous breakdown at 3am when it is -5 degrees, those are the reasons why you pay for an agent to manage your property.
