The Tenant Fee Ban Is Here. Are You Ready?
Remember, from 1st June you will not be able to charge tenants almost any fees whatsoever. Although there are one or two exceptions, these relate to minimal fees that you can charge a tenant during the course of a tenancy, so it is best to think of the ban as a total ban.
Deposits are affected too, in that if you take a holding deposit then it cannot be more than the equivalent of 1 week’s rent, and the tenancy deposit itself cannot be more than the equivalent of 5 weeks’ rent. There are NO EXCEPTIONS so please, please don’t try your luck, as the punishments for breaching these rules are ridiculously large fines, and of course the onus is on the tenant to report you, which they will no doubt happily do.
You can, of course, keep the tenant’s holding deposit if they pull out. This should stop tenants from applying for multiple tenancies at once and messing landlords around.
Since you can no longer charge tenants for referencing we’ve moved our referencing to another company where we’ve negotiated a great deal of just £20 for a full tenant or guarantor reference. The fee ban is bound to bring the devious out of the woodwork to sniff around for properties where tight landords who will let them take on a tenancy without proper checks. Don’t be one of those!
Here are a couple of articles to read for those of you interested in further details: