Updating post from Reddit.
We use a letting agent for our property, and as part of preparing our personal tax returns we asked the letting agent for a summary of income and expenses for the property.. You’d think this would be a case of just hitting a “print” button right ? No, they want £102 — seems excessive, no ?
Please send a breakdown of the associated costs for me to consider.
Please also send me a detailed reason why you think this would be an appropriate charge.
On a different matter, which agents would you consider to be your closest competitor?
Very good
Or email and say thank you can you confirm you have received this email for which I am charging £102 for my time to respond, my use of my computer and Internet. Please send me my statement FOC as we seem to be equal now . Failure to do so will result in termination of our agreement forthwith.
Except, sadly, that is not really enforceable. It’s just the realities of not owning a property (freehold) I had to pay thousands to the landlord for leasehold documentation when selling. It’s just the way it goes. £50 admin fee for any page of info needed
I sold a leasehold property last year, cost me thousands too. £400 to settle a lift maintenance debt for a lift I didn’t even have access too
Fight fire with fire, madness with madness!
Yeah this will definitely work
This. I am sure it’s illegal to charge for a bill breakdown (which that essentially is ) & if it isn’t , just charge them £102 for reading their response and use another firm
I'm sure they will be happy to oblige.
For the appropriate fee..
There's a £50 Explaining The Fee fee.
I would reply to that email with my notice for terminating the agency agreement.
Or just arrange a meeting to discuss arranging a lower monthly fee.
Kindly decline their offer and then get rid of them as agents.
Countrywide. You learnt your lesson
As a Countrywide tenant, I agree with this statement.
They definitely put the Cun..well, you get the picture.
My friend went with countrywide. Once. He now calls them ‘stretchemwide’ 😂😂😂
Bloody countrywide. Long list of stupidity, but charging me 50 quid because my tennant blocked the shower hole with disposable razor heads was the final straw.
>my tennant blocked the shower hole with disposable razor heads
What the hell... how?!?!?!
I had the same thing too 🤯
HOW though?!?!
Ehh that’s a good question. My plumber found three razor blade heads down there when tenant claimed it was blocked. I said to my tenant he had to pay for the plumber because it was negligence ‘letting three razor blade heads go down a 2 inch pipe’ he agreed without argument and paid up the £90 call-out fee.
I think they thought they would just go down the pipe and not cause issues 🤯
Do a SOR request
Subject Access Request (SAR) or something else?
That’ll save £120! :)
They’d be entitled to charge an admin fee for that too, although they’d struggle to justify it being as much.
If you're referring to DSAR or SAR (Data Subject Access Request or Subject Access Request respectively), then they are only valid for personal data. Legally, personal data are data that can be used to identify a person. I'd be willing to bet that a small part of their finances isn't classed as such.
That only applies to individuals, they would rightly refuse it for a business (which being a landlord is)
This is dumb, estate agent olds your own personal data, they would have to comply with a subject access request.
Not true. You could put in a SAR about what data they hold on you as an individual. My husband works in data protection and gets them all the time for the businesses he represents. They're usually just to waste time when the business has annoyed them.
A landlord can be an individual. You’re confusing it for being a Ltd company.
But his relationship with a letting agent will always be a business relationship, so consumer law doesn’t apply. A sole trader is still a business.
Property letting is an investment, not a business.
It would only be considered a business if you managed enough properties to take up most of your working time, and the point of a letting agent is that you don't need to do that.
You're absolutely right consumer law doesnt apply, but thats because this isn't a consumer issue not because GDPR isn't relevant.
Openrent is your friend 👍
Unless you have ~50+ properties there’s no reason to be using agents. They don’t care who they put into your property at all
Nor do they care about spending your money on rip off contactors, nor do they care about looking after your tenants so they stick around - in fact it seems in their interest to cause friction from which they can profit.
As a general rule in all parts of life I try to avoid middlemen and have the customer and supplier deal as closely as possible.
If you move abroad but want to keep your rentals, then you might be legally required to use an agent.
I worked for a letting agent briefly and I've definitely seen cases where the landlord is absent (abroad) and doesn't give an "F" as long as they get their rent. The only way the tenants get anything fixed or replaced (even if legally required!) is if the agent forces the issue and deducts it from the rents.
There are good and bad landlords, and good and bad agents.
lol. thanks for sharing that. Just another reason if any was needed, not to use agents if possible.
No. Not to use big rubbish franchise agents.
My letting agent charge 150 for the same info, it's outrageous tbh.
Criminal! See my other comment. These agents really should be keeping immaculate records of these things, so it's beyond reason they can charge >£100 to curate/print them. Wtf!
I sacked my letting agent from property management side so now I only use them for finding tenants and rent collection. I could go on for hours how outrageous mine were before I sacked them and often have named and shamed them. Cough Haart Guildford... Ooops done it again.
Think I caught your illness (sneeze!), Surrey and Hampshire should also be avoided like the plague. A truly incompetent agency.
Lol I could go on about all that happened it's actually comic if it wasn't happening to me.
Best decision I've made in a long time sacking them, my stress levels have come down significantly.
So should you. You know your income and expenditure as you go.
They’re just capitalising on your inability to keep accurate records. Nowt wrong with that.
If you don’t like the experience of letting your property out, you are free to sell it whenever you like. I suggest you get it on the market.
Nowt wrong with that. True. It's capitalising on an opportunity.
Free to sell? True.
Free to change to agents that don't double dip? Also true.
My point was that if you pay someone for a professional service, including the basic accounting, it's borderline unethical to charge you again for the output. If I wanted to keep my own inc/exp records, I wouldn't pay someone else to do it. It's the difference between a good user experience and a lacklustre one.
Used to be a PM. Our primitive software generated this at a click of a button for free.
An absolute, total scam, to which you probably agreed when signing the contract.
Almost as outrageous as making someone else give you nearly half their monthly income to buy you yet another property.
You could always use that income to buy your own property?
Ah yes, and in the meantime simply live in a box, I assume?
A stupid comment that gives landlords a bad name. I know landlords who wouldn't be able to afford to live in their own flats if they were renting them. And That's how bad and stupid the property market is.
and where would you live in the meantime, if you are saving your rent payment to buy a house?
You don’t make them and where would they live otherwise? Most tenants can’t buy a house as they have not the money, didn’t you know?
I here this alot but you can always buy your own property. Typically mortgages and rent are about the same amount if it's interest only, still means you or LL would have to save up separately the actual cost of the house on top.
Why hate on LL, your choice if you rent or buy. If a bank won't lend to you that's not a landlords fault is it.
The amount of rent today will barely cover the interest on a mortgage particularly in southern England so you definitely arnt paying for somebody else's house.
If you ran all figures involved which I have a LL typically would make around 7k a year after all costs taken off and sold that's assuming the property value doubled over the ownership of the property. It's hardly a good return for the hassle involved in being a LL and the high risks associated with this type of investment.
So about 583 pounds a month profit not even seen until the property is sold many years into the future if all goes well.
So if the LL worked 12 hours a week on a minimum wage job they would earn about the same as they do from a BTL property. That's like 2.2 hours a day Monday to Friday minimum wage is equivalent to profit from a BTL.
Obviously that's if all goes well and property values double and the LL rents property without any significant void periods or having a tenant stopping rent or costs of evictions etc.
This anti landlord bashing and constantly telling them to sell up and calling them leaches on society etc is tiresome. It's not like their isn't plenty of properties to buy on the market, no landlord forces you to rent off them it's a choice people choose it's a product at the end of the day.
If you going to bash LL then atleast do your sums and work out the realities and costs involved.
Have you ever heard of a deposit? JFC.
Certainly have it's 25% for a BTL mortgage but it's only 10% to you so for a LL they have to work 2.5 times harder than you do to afford a BTL property, lucky you.
Yeah, and your tenant will pay that. You're being wilfully obtuse about this, there's very little profit in engaging with you further. Not that I ever wanted to to begin with.
I'm not actually trying to be obtuse at all it's just the grass isn't always greener from the other side at all.
I hope you are able to save and my advice is to rent in an hmo for a few years and save the 10% deposit needed as renting a room in an hmo will be considerably cheaper than a mortgage even on a small flat.
Once you saved the deposit go find your home and I wish you the best of luck.
I have tried many times & ill give one peice of advice, those who dislike landlords are usually snowflakes who doesn't know a day if hard graft in their lives and expect that everyone should be able to just buy a house when they feel like it. Don't bother arguing with them, they'll never change their minds because they have to admit to themselves that they're just lazy.
I worked 80 hours a week, 2 jobs for about 3 years before I bought my first house, saved up endlessly, missed nights out and parties, lads holiday etc all when I was 18-20 and at 20 when I bought a house I had people tell me how it wasn't fair that they were in 30k of debt whilst I had 25k in the bank to buy a house 🤣 Now I own 13 and each year I still save 50% of my monthly salary toward buying more properties and these people continue to argue that "it's not fair".
Well I only own two and that's stressful enough for me tbh lol.
I know how hard it is being in the game myself so I admire your commitment to running 13.
Well done you.
>Typically mortgages and rent are about the same amount if it's interest only
So where is the money to pay off the capital supposed to come from? Your attitude stinks.
From working like any other person including a BTL LL or by selling the property at the end.
BTL investors have to sell property to see any gain and that gain isn't guaranteed.
If you personally have a mortgage you can choose to have a repayment mortgage but the amount will be higher than interest only. BTL LL can also choose to have a repayment mortgage but the rent won't cover the monthly charge if they do it barely tracks the interest today but it did very well when interest rates were at historic lows for 15 years however so did people buying their own home benefit from that.
Your attitude stinks! So instead of debate you just want to win a discussion by hurling insults, well sorry I'm not going to rise to that bait. I really don't care if you believe LL are evil overlords I'm never going to pursuade you differently however older people have lived through changing economic times and can see the route causes of how we have got to where we are.
I agree housing is unaffordable for many particularly the young but it always has been. People often quote that years ago loan to annual income was around 3x but today it's more like 11x. This is absolutely true but people forget to add in that when housing cost 3x annual salary then interest rates were around 10% or higher. When it's rose to 11x annual salary we had 15 years of bank interest at near 0%. It's now a problem for all including LL because interest rates are on the rise but housing hasn't adjusted down yet so 11x annual salary with high interest rates is a problem for everybody, hopefully this will reset in time and house prices will fall making affordability about the same as it's always been. We are not at that point yet.
LL have two choices stay in the market or exit and with all this LL hate many will choose to exit. It may not help renters when they do, it might not mean a renter can secure a mortgage even if property prices fall but it won't be LL fault it will as it always has been government policy and artificially keeping the property market boyant when it clearly should have boom and bust cycles as it historically did.
Wow. How kind of you guys - thank you so much for the favour of buying up the houses so we don't have to! Whats that? Just buy our own houses you say? That is a splendid idea indeed - see, that's why we're the little guys, why didn't WE think of that!?
My family have owned my two rental properties since 1970 for one and 1980 for the other. I placed both on the market last year but no agreed sales made it to conclusion.
I don't get what you want. Do you want no rentals in the UK? Then lobby the government to only make it legal for 1 property per person at a time, better still get political and get elected to office and lobby for change from the inside.
Do you want all LL to sell up? Well with all these changes and costs involved increasing the risks then it's definitely moving in that direction anyway.
Do you want to buy without having affordability checks and paying a deposit down? Then again lobby government to force banks to lend with no deposit down. Banks use to do that for a while and it caused the sub prime housing bubble and nearly crashed the world economies that's why we had 15 years of near 0% bank of England interest rates which is why incidentally BTL ownership exploded in numbers as borrowing was cheap.
All of this is not LL fault, you are hating on the wrong people but I guess if you read the wrong sort of newspaper rag or simply hang out with other uninformed bigoted like minded people then you won't look for the truth behind the headlines.
This is a community for Landlords. You can be anti-landlord in other places like /r/HousingUK/
I’m an accountant and a good few of my clients’ letting agents have gone to the length of setting up online portal accounts for us so that we can just download the info
After all it saves them time long term in our clients no longer asking them to do it
Not aware of anyone charging for this. Awful customer service and not a way to win business. At the very least you’d expect them to just build those costs into their overall fee structure, but clearly they’re lazy and are using the fee as a deterrent from asking them to do anything other than their basic obligation
That would be good - a lot of the clients my agent has use the same accountant as they’re the ones the agent uses.
Get different agents.
If you need that information make a subject access request for which they can charge you for hitting the button.
Or tell them you don’t want that service (and they’re sacked anyway) but as their principal you wish to see all the paperwork they have dealt with as your agent. The agent acts for you. Tut, didn’t they do Latin at school?
I had something similar and basically had to total up 12 excel sheets - took me 5 minutes but led to me firing the agent. Stuff like this is madness.
damn, mine just posted it out to me for free and i didnt even have to ask for it.
Mine send it for free
I setup my own agency because of this extortion. It’s literally a PDF from the software, 3/4 clicks and under 5 minutes to sort - ignoring the fact it should just be provided as standard!
Anyway a Front door lettings in Bristol if anyone wants good management without stupid fees like this.
It would have taken less time to download it from their CRM as to type that email up and send it.
That's an exorbitant hourly rate for curating a report on data they presumably are already keeping. Either they're screwing you with the hourly rate, or they're not keeping the records they should be keeping.
Either way, for the love of god, toss them.
FWIW, I switched my management over to the folks at mypy.co.uk, and they've been great so far. No BS charges for providing the service I'm already paying for, and even that was lower than what my last agents were charging!! I could have self managed, but honestly who has time for that. I already have a job 🤣.
Countrywide are the worst, sacked them because of their overreach and pettiness
Countrywide are terrible. Check your agreement with them it's probably included as part of the service you are paying for and they don't even know it.
I have a fully managed property. At no point have I seen or expected the agent to keep a track of all my incomings/outgoings for my property. That would be you, an accountant or a bookkeeper? Even if you get this info from them it’s incomplete, they won’t have any miles you’ve travelled, any items you may have purchased yourself and not via them, any mortgage interest details. It’s what £70 to sign up to the NRLA, who now offer free book keeping software. It’s simple enough to input to as and when, and will save you this extortion.
We send the annual breakdown to landlords when they request it for free. Some ask for a monthly statement for the year so far. As an EA i make my money from monthly charges I don't need to overcharge the LL
If in the uk you can request all information linked to you as per gdpr regulations. They have to legally give this to you and they can’t charge you. What a scam that they are trying to bill you for this!
Lol, this is so bad, mine is free
I agree, find a new agent
Including VAT? 🤔
I would ask them where was this charge I my contract and why has my contract of letting been updated.
Did they issue you with a terms of business or similar document when you initially signed up, most agents I've used will have set all their fees out in a document you've long forgotten agreeing to...
Ours is just available on our Landlord Portal on their website. I'd change agents.
This should really be already built into their pricing structure and an expectation from every landlord that this is provided yearly anyway as they are billing you for work to be done, they should be giving you a copy of all records so that you know what is being billed.
So glad I only use estate agents to find me tenants and pay the associated fees as a one off and send those details to my accountant.
Reddit should collectively leave bad reviews for countrywide on Google.
Its amazing how much they leech of landlords.
A letting agent tried to charge us £150 a few years ago for printing out and issuing the new contract. I said no and if they charged us we would hand in our notice and they could explain to the landlord why they would be losing good tenants.
We didn’t have to pay it. What a disgusting racket, not everyone can afford to take a stand like that and they underestimated my pettiness and the fact we could afford to take a stand and didn’t need that specific house but I knew they would have to back down.
Why oh why didn't I take the Blue Pill?
THE WAR ON LANDLORDS
What a scam, won’t be using them in the future!
Ask for a personal data request. They have to send you it within 30 days per GDPR if you want the statement for free
Ah the leasehold grifters. To me these fuckers are worse than traffic wardens, politicians and solicitors. They’re a Poundland wannabe paralegal who couldn’t string their full name together when filling out an application to study law, so consoled themselves with defrauding homeowners held ransom to their lack to freehold.
Good social housing tell the agents to stick their greedy offer up there backside.
Mine do but I just use the monthly statements they send out so don't actually need this document.
I don’t disagree agree with others that these costs are high……but why do you need them to do this for you?
I assume you get monthly statements which details all this, all you need to do yourself is add them up.
This is all I’ve ever done. Never took me long.
Do they not send you a monthly breakdown when the rent comes in?
CTRL+P
Do you not get a monthly statement though and therefore have all of this information throughout the year?
We do, but my partner seems to have misplaced some of them
I mean, they pay you via bank transfer? Can just check amounts and Rent minus what you get = Costs
That would work
Could you ask if that £102 is purely for accounting work or are you being charged for the administrative cost of them sending an email - assuming it's digital.
Surely their letting agents fees should cover some administrative work?
Then when they say you are not being charged for the email, ask them to email you the monthly statements again instead.
My agent has all this available on their portal. Along with tenancy agreement, references, monthly statements, invoices, etc.. Literally anything and everything is available.
Use Openrent. Bit of a pain showing people around and a few nominal charges for credit checks/reference checks etc but rent collection £10 per month, rental insurance £100 per year as long as tenants pass affordability. All costs considered it’s a fraction of what a letting agent rips you off for.
From April 2026 all tax for LL earning over 35k is going digital and all those LL will have to submit quarterly reports to HMRC through approved online accounting software so this will stop the need for such reports from property management companies as we will all be forced to keep on top of our rental records all the time.
Not heard many talking about this incoming change but we are only a year away this coming April from when we will need to change how we do our taxes.
Greedy is, as greedy does!
Our gas report said carbon monoxide detector was missing. Agent want £60 to supply. I bought it from Amazon for £16, delivered direct to tenant. Tenant installed for free and sent me a pic.
I just use agent to collect rent and to provide rent guarantee insurance
Can’t you produce this yourself? They confirm everything/charges with you?
Nice you get a choice to pay it. I have a similar charge but my letting agent just takes it out the rent automatically
I’d bin them immediately. My agent has a portal that I can log into that gives me direct access to all this information FOC. Can print whenever I want.
My agent also charged for this, but since they emailed me every invoice anyway, it took about 5 minutes to put it in ma spreadsheet myself.
We got conned into going with countrywide as first time buyers as the wanker of a mortgage advisor said we need to go with a specialist lender which we later found out was a load of shit, only did a 2 year mortgage thankfully then moved on as we found we could pay so much less. Now, on 3rd re mortgage, fixed for 10 years, paying considerably less.
Can't remember the figures exactly but we paid them loads and fuck all came off the actual mortgage.
Absolute scum. And that wanker inside frank innes aswell.
Can you lodge a freedom of information against them. Get it that way instead 😅
UK banks are on another level of cash grab lol
Pass the cost onto your tenants. If you’re gonna landlord then landlord properly.
SAR request them immediately, that'll give them a good fulls weeks work for one person. If someone else is on your tenancy agreement, repeat once you receive your data.
Aren’t admin fees illegal in England & Wales now?
Serves you right
You screw your tenants over, so the agency can screw you over
This is a community for Landlords. You can be anti-landlord in other places like /r/HousingUK/
I was charged and such statement produced without asking me in advance, I was new to rental then so didn’t contest it thinking it was the norm. It was Haart.
Good to see a landlord getting a taste of their own medicine
Do you not receive a monthly statement listing the information you need? I'd find a new agent and while you're at it, ask your tenants what the agent has charged them for and see if there's anything they should have.
Do they include that fee in the statement, or is there another fee for that?
As a tenant, I loathe Countrywide. Useless and endless fees, so I moved out ASAP despite the flat being great otherwise. They even charged me a fee to give my next landlord a reference.
Now I bounce as soon as I hear a place I'm looking at is managed by countrywide.
If you’re worried about this charge you could try getting a real job to cover it?
This is a community for Landlords. You can be anti-landlord in other places like /r/HousingUK/
How ridiculous to charge money when they provide absolutely no value!
Ahhh yes countrywide, what a bunch of shits.
I feel a bit silly looking at this - we don't charge anything at all!
Maybe we should all email Millie to register our disgust…
I've never charged a landlord for a statement outside of the management fee they pay.
They should send you a monthly statement of gross income less any expenses charged - do they do this? You could then work out the summary yourself
Maybe consider a Subject Access Request for all data relating to you and your property? Dunno if that would work, but just a thought.....
Everyone needs to email millie and flood her inbox with spam 🤣🤣🤣
I’m 95% certain that any financial transactions within the UK have to have a paper copy (i.e. a receipt) provided at no expense. But could be wrong.
God I hate these agents.
I, mean... you get money for doing nothing, so why should they not charge you for doing something? 😂
[deleted]
That documents for tenants not landlords though?
Don’t worry mate, I’ve emailed her for you.
No
Don’t be lazy. £102 for something you can do yourself. No wonder they charge. Countrywide has an online portal. Log in as a Landlord and print your last 12 months statement yourself.
Good to see landlords also get screwed by absurd pricing practices
This is a community for Landlords. You can be anti-landlord in other places like /r/HousingUK/
Landlords complaining about arbitrary fees is the pot calling the kettle black, no?
Can you not use some of the money your tenants pay you per month to cover this?
Hahahaha! Oh the joy I feel when I see a landlord complaining about having to pay for things. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll make your tenants pay it for you.
This is a community for Landlords. You can be anti-landlord in other places like /r/HousingUK/
Complaining about charging money for something they don’t really have to put any work into seems a bit rich for landlords tbh
Weird that 4.6m are prepared to pay for this “nothing” service don’t you think ?
My thoughts exactly. Slap it up em I say. Parasites.
...try being a tenant and see the crazy fees your agents charge us to rent your properties
Dont know what to tell you, but tenant fees are illegal, since 2019
