UK Landlord Forum / Life

This question is from me, but refers to a friend who has just jumped into letting their first property. As it's their first time, they have gone with an Agent (one I think is kind of reputable) and they shared the online advert with me... one thing I immediately noticed on the advert was a bit saying: "Deposit and fees apply"... I clicked on that link, just out of curiosity, really... and it talked all about the fees that were due - mostly 100% on the money, even referring to the Tenant Fees Ban legislation... it covered off the Holding Deposit aspect as well... it then said that certain fees could be charged and listed a whole set of them... none of them I have any problem with, lost keys etc., apart from the last one which intrigued me...

Company application fee £100 inc. VAT.

Is that valid?

I had a quick skim of some of the .gov guidance... searching their PDFs for "application" but all I got were hits about "application" to Court... "application fee" returned zero hits. I doubt this is a grey area.

I'm not sure I understand what "company application fee" is. Is that for when an incorporated company wishes to become the tenant? In that case, probably not illegal as I don't think the Tenant Fees Act applies to a common law tenancy with a company tenant. But did your friend actually agrees to having a company as the tenant?

No, the inference from me is that it's a fee paid to the Estate Agent, by the Tenant... my friend is looking for normal Tenants, not companies, but, anyway, this is just their standard blurb on the page anyway - here is the page... https://www.connells.co.uk/estate-agents/northampton/fees ...I found it even more interesting as it has no explanation, whereas the others go into some detail.

Yeah, I still have no idea what the "company application fee" is for. Maybe your friend could call the agent up and pretend to be a prospective tenant and ask them, because I can't imagine what it could be that's covered by the TFA and allowed under it.