Is your Southampton letting agent charging more for work on your property then they should?

This is a longer post then I would normally do but it is well worth a read if your letting agent carries out work for you, the level of fees and commissions allegedly charged is frightening. If a letting agent is managing your property or you are looking to appoint one, there are a number of quick questions you need to ask your agent, namely:

                                                      

-         Are they a member of SAFEagent

-         Do they pay rents to landlords immediately

-         Do they have a stated policy of NOT charging mark ups and commissions on 3^rd party invoices?

If the answer to any of these questions is NO – keep looking for a better agent! If the answer is YES then continue with your due diligence on the agent. Here is the article that was posted in Landlord Today this morning..

London based law firm Leigh Day has announced that it is bringing a group claim against estate agent Foxtons on behalf of landlords, in a legal case which could see the London estate agent facing a multi-million pound payout.

The case is being taken on behalf of private individual landlords who have used Foxtons either just to let, or to both let and manage, their property.

The claim is that Foxtons has been charging landlords hidden commissions of as much as 33% of a contractor’s fee for work done on their properties such as repairs, maintenance, electrical safety checks, inventory checks, etc, without obtaining the fully informed consent of landlords.

It is also alleged that the London based estate agent has engaged contractors who charge as much as two or three times the market rate in breach of their duty to try to get a good deal for landlords.

According to lawyers the potential claims could total as much as £15,000 for landlords whose properties were managed by the company, but that the amount would vary from individual to individual.

Landlords who think they have been affected can fill in a form on Leigh Day’s website here.

One of the claimants is Dr Chris Townley, a lecturer in competition law at King’s College London, who previously worked for the Office of Fair Trading.

Foxtons let and managed a property for Dr Townley from April 2011 until August 2013.

At no stage during the engagement process, or subsequently while they were managing his property, did Foxtons suggest that it would receive commissions from any contractors they engaged to maintain the property, nor fees from the tenants.

In 2013, Dr Townley became increasingly dissatisfied with Foxtons’ service and complained. One of the issues he was dissatisfied with was the quality of work done by a contractor who had installed a security light at the front of the property following a request by the tenant.

Dr Townley contacted the contractor to complain, and was told that if his complaint was established they would refund him for the work. However, they were only prepared to refund him the money that they had actually received for the work.

Dr Townley had been invoiced £550 for the work, but the contractor explained that they had a contract with Foxtons to pay Foxtons a commission for any work that they received through the agent.

The contractors charged £412.50 for the work, but they had added an additional commission onto their fee for Foxtons (as they were obliged to do in their Foxtons contract). This was not set out in the invoice.

Dr Townley started asking Foxtons questions about the commissions and after initially refusing to give details, Foxtons eventually admitted that they had taken a substantial commission on virtually every contractor’s work, totalling 38 commissions and about £1,900.

In many cases the commission was as much as 33% of the contractor’s bill. None of this was identified in any of the invoices or in the accounts that Foxtons gave Dr Townley.

Foxtons refused to repay the commissions, denied any wrongdoing and relied on a clause in their contract that says they may retain commissions taken from third parties.

Dr Townley was very surprised to learn about the commissions, particularly given Foxtons had also charged him an additional contractual fee of 10% + VAT (12% inc VAT) for any invoice that was over £500.

For example, Foxtons had charged the additional fee on the £550 invoice for the security light (£55 exc vat; £66 inc vat). But it was only over £500 because of Foxtons’ 33% mark up.

This meant that instead of just paying the contractor about £412.50 for the work, Dr Townley had to pay Foxtons’ additional fees of about £203.50 inc vat – a just under 50% mark-up – with a grand total of about £616 inc vat.

Chris Haan, a solicitor at law firm Leigh Day, said: “We consider that Foxtons has a potential conflict of interest in that the more expensive the contractor is, the more Foxtons makes in hidden commissions. We believe these charges to landlords are unlawful as they are not sufficiently disclosed, so the landlords cannot give fully informed consent to them. This is against industry codes of practice.

“These kinds of practices may be widespread in the lettings industry and it needs to stop. We are taking this case on no win no fee with the aim of securing a refund from Foxtons for all affected landlords.”

http://www.landlordtoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2015/6/foxtons-estate-faces-class-action-over-alleged-hidden-payments