Housing experts are warning tenants to think twice before using “relocation” or “appointment-making” agents who charge tenants an upfront cash fee just to look around budget flats in prime postcodes in London.
Relocation agents who deal with wealthy clients have been around for years, typically sourcing properties for cash-rich, time-poor executives relocating to a different part of the country. As well as finding potential properties, they negotiate tenancy terms, often help with a family’s educational requirements, and even sort out the logistics of the move.
But, on the other side of the divide – where tenants with little money are looking for the very cheapest accommodation – there are a growing number of companies describing themselves as “relocation agents” who simply make appointments, and charge for doing so.
They are targeting tenants, often from overseas, primarily looking for studio flats and their even smaller sibling “semi-studios” in popular central London locations.
Legally, letting agents aren’t allowed to charge tenants to register or to see a list of available properties. But the companies advertising these tiny – and for London, relatively cheap – properties, claim they don’t receive any payment or commission from landlords.
And that means they are exempt from the rules letting agents must stick to. Instead, they call themselves “introduction” or “appointment making” services, or “relocation agents” and say they work for the tenant, not the landlord.
Glenn Nickols of The Tenants’ Voice, a website fighting for tenants’ rights, warns against upfront fees. “Looking for ways to fleece already cash-strapped tenants is only going to damage the industry’s reputation further, and tenants have had enough,” he says. “A tenant should never accept this type of fee and should immediately walk away.”
Seb Klier, policy manager at Generation Rent, says that even if these agents are providing a different, legitimate service, tenants should be wary of approaching any property company that they are not sure about as there are many “creating inventive new ways of ripping off desperate flat hunters”.
“The number of agents operating at the very edges of the law makes it essential that the industry is properly regulated,” he says.
Once tenants pay the fee, the agent sources suitable properties from landlords, often those who own houses in multiple occupation, and books viewings. If the tenant finds a flat they like they deal directly with the landlord, with the agency having no further involvement. The agencies claim they don’t receive any commission from landlords who, they say, keep rents comparatively low for the area in question.
Typically studio flats, and semi-studios, are created when landlords divide bigger properties into smaller self-contained spaces. They can appeal to students and young professionals keen to live close to the heart of the city, and often tenants have to sleep, cook and shower in the same room.
Cash visited Easyletsuk, which has numerous studios listed to rent on Rightmove. Its website describes the company as a “letting/relocation agency” and gives an address in Kensington, west London. It is a budget-focused subsidiary of Easylet International, a conventional lettings agency that deals with wealthier clients looking in prosperous areas of London including Kensington, Notting Hill Gate and Bayswater.
At the offices of Easyletsuk we found David, an agent working from a laptop at a sole table in a business lounge shared with other remote workers.
He requested £100 to see properties over a four-month period. “We provide a service, you pay a fee,” we were told.
Tenants who stump up the cash might be shocked when they view the available properties. Some that Easyletsuk lists on Rightmove have a bed, cooking facilities and shower cubicle crammed into one tiny room (see below).
Matt Hutchinson, director of Spareroom.co.uk, says these agencies are an indicator of how frantic the rentals market has become. “We’d never recommend people pay a fee up front simply for the right to view a property, particularly when there’s no guarantee you’ll like it, or even that you’ll be able to rent it if you do,” he says.
We also rang Spacelet, an agency with several properties listed on Zoopla, and asked how to arrange a viewing. We were told it was £79 to join the agency for three months and no appointments would be arranged until we paid.
Its website said a bit more about its fees: £79 is for a single person and non-refundable. Couples pay £99 to find a bedsit, studio or one-bed flat, while a search for a two-bed flat would set them back £158. Tenants can’t see a list of available properties until they pay up.
Tenants who pay need to phone their “personal consultant” each day to confirm their availability for viewings and the consultant will then make appointments on their behalf.
Claire Reynolds at Spacelet explained how the service works: “We are not an estate agency or a letting agency, we are ‘property finders’ and we work differently from the former two types of agencies. We are not instructed by landlords and therefore do not charge landlords a commission.
“We are absolutely free to landlords and, in return, they give us discounts on their properties.”
She said the agency is instructed by “clients” who pay Spacelet a one-off fee to make appointments and source properties. “We do not charge tenants a registration fee for viewing,” she said.
A similar firm, Flatland, has been going since 1971 and describes itself as the “original London relocation/rental appointment-making service.”
Flatland sends tenants a free list of available studios and flats each day, but they have to pay to view: £61.50 for a single person or £71.50 for two or more.
“The relocation/appointment service fee of £61.50/71.50 is not for registering or for a list. The fee is for a three-month introduction/appointment service to landlords,” Flatland Management told us in an email.
“It has been established for many years that an introduction/appointment fee requested by an introduction agent for introductions/appointments to landlords (where there is no commission in the rent) is a bona fide service and rents are less generally, as the rent is paid directly to the landlord free of added commission inflating the rent.”
What you get for your money
Advertised on Rightmove by Easyletsuk, for £140 a week tenants get a studio in Matheson Road, W14 a couple of minutes from West Kensington tube. Everything – microwave, fridge and shower – is in reaching distance of the single bed. The toilet is shared with another bedsit.
Spacelet is advertising this semi-studio on Zoopla, in Holland Road, W14. For £125 a week you get a shower, kitchenette, and single bed crammed into one tiny room. The toilet is shared and ‘professionally cleaned once a week’ and there’s use of ‘fully-fitted communal kitchen’.
Another offering from Spacelet, advertised on Zoopla, is this single semi-studio in a Victorian house in Lena Gardens, W6. For £110 a week, tenants get a furnished studio room with kitchenette shower, central heating, wood floors and a shared toilet.
