UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi
We bought a tenanted property and continued with the existing agent having been told the tenant wanted to move. Our intention was to then change to the agent who was managing our first rental property.

2 years later the tenants are still there on a monthly tenancy. The rent is lower than our other property but the agents fees are higher so we want to move the management to the other, better agent which will also reduce fees by 1% for both properties.

We've discovered that we will be charged 2 months rent + VAT to do this.

Is this acceptable and can it be enforced? We are happy with the tenants and don't want to give them notice to quit but we are very unhappy with the agents. Our other agents don't have any such clauses in their terms and conditions.

Any advice on where we stand or any solutions would be much appreciated. Thank you

It depends on what basis you "continued" with the agent when you bought the property. There wasn't actually anything for you to "continue" with, so you entered into a new agreement of some kind with the agent at that point.

If your other agents don't have anything similar in their terms that makes them very unusual. These type of terms are typical and two months rent isn't the worst I've seen, but it's quite steep.

Some agents have really onerous exit terms, but they usually charge their fee (which is a percentage of the rent) for up to two years.  So the two months rent as a fee sounds extremely excessive, although if you were paying some premium percentage then it might exceed 2 months rent.

You might want to consider why you need an agent, I think they are a dying breed and the majority are feckless.

I think JPK is right, when did you sign a contract with this agent, no term was made prominently to you and if it was made prominently you would never had agreed to such a term.

I would first inform them that you have never agreed to such a term and no matter what they think was implied, it it was never accepted and nobody else had authority to contract on your behalf.

If they collect the rent I would make sure that you get it all, maybe ask the Tenant's to pay you directly.

I would also check the status of their deposit with the deposit protection scheme used, as if there has been an error such as a failure to serve PI, you want to hold them liable.

Quote from: CAG on March 29, 2025, 10:44:14 PMHi
We bought a tenanted property and continued with the existing agent having been told the tenant wanted to move. Our intention was to then change to the agent who was managing our first rental property.

2 years later the tenants are still there on a monthly tenancy. The rent is lower than our other property but the agents fees are higher so we want to move the management to the other, better agent which will also reduce fees by 1% for both properties.

We've discovered that we will be charged 2 months rent + VAT to do this.

Is this acceptable and can it be enforced? We are happy with the tenants and don't want to give them notice to quit but we are very unhappy with the agents. Our other agents don't have any such clauses in their terms and conditions.

Any advice on where we stand or any solutions would be much appreciated. Thank you