A HELPFUL guide for renters, explaining letting agents’ many bullshit fees.
Picking up the phone fee
Congratulations, you have found a property! Now all you need to do is call the letting agent and let them know. Unfortunately, this means they’ll have to pick up the phone and charge you for it. Then they have to put it down again so there is a fee for that too.
Printing a thing fee
We can all assume that letting agents aren’t charging us hundreds of pounds for simply ‘printing stuff out’ because that would be a fucking joke, right? But they use premium paper spun from the finest spider’s silk and ink made from the blood of Jesus, so they have to.
Putting the printed thing in an envelope fee
The agents must now go to the effort of putting the thing in an envelope, which in this digital age, is no mean feat. Agents undoubtedly attend specialist courses to master this skill. And their work does not end there. Once sealed, agents often travel at least two or three minutes across the office to pop the envelope on the To Post pile.
Coffee break fee
After all this printing and posting, the agents deserve a coffee break, but who will pay for it? Clue: not them.
The just because we bloody well can fee
This is the letting agency’s cute little way of making you prove just HOW much you want a property.
Fee fees
Do you think these fees just come up with themselves? Letting agencies put a lot of time and effort into coming up with as many charges as possible. It is only right they are reimbursed for it.
