Letting a farm cottage - the need for an agent....?

Nearly

Member
Location
North of York
I have 4 properties on AST's 3 old farm cottages and one newer property. I use an Agent to find new Tenants 75% of the time, and pay a pre-agreed fixed figure of around 400 quid for their work. Have been delighted with their vetting so far over 4 years. Lettings not pre-arranged with Agents have been fine, but need checks on incomes;)

All management in-house(y)
This.
Paid agent £450 to find a pair of doctors to live in our cottage in farmyard.
All paperwork and searches done.

Sorted.
 

Ysgythan

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Ammanford
Can be done without an agent but it’s getting a lot more complicated with the required pre lettin paperwork - EPC, TDS, electrical certs, gas safety checks, right to rent etc etc. All of which needs to be present and correct (especially if you ever need to apply to Court for posession!).

I mostly use an agent as they deal with the above and do the initail weeding out of unsuitable candidates, but beware of the extra fees! Just swapped as the last one started to charge an annual fee to hold the deposit, among other things (FFS!!) :mad:

And it’s not just fees for you. They charge prospective tenants for property information.
 

muppet

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Dorset
And it’s not just fees for you. They charge prospective tenants for property information.

Yes!! The old agent was charging 75% finding fee, plus tenancy agreement, plus TDS fees, plus inventory/schedule of condition. And then started charging £45 as an annual charge to hold the deposit. It was getting ridiculous. Tbf they had been bought out and I think they were maximising their potential income as is their right to do so, but charging money to hold money was taking the p!ss and the last few tenants through them turned out to be less than ideal. They were charging tenants for a lot of the above too. I now use one who charges a fixed £400 finding fee and new tenants pay for the inventory. May well change if agents are not permitted to charge tenants fees though
 

Jerry

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Devon
4 family rentals,use agent to find tenants,contracts and checks but do viewings ourselves.Do management our selves as paying 10% for them to answer a phone,ring a tradesman to solve problem with no regard to cost is ridiculous.

Exactly same approach we take with out 7 properties.

An agent us worth their salt when a tenant goes bad, thankfully a rare occurrence.
 

Bongodog

Member
We do use an agent because they can provide a bit of a barrier when necessary between tenants and us. We’ve got one lot of tenants who are proving to be a bit of a pain; want minor problems sorting out yesterday, peeing off tradesmen and so on. In future I think we’ll insist they go through the agent cos I can do without the agro.

We use agents now, got fed up with phone calls from tenants on a Saturday morning or whatever "the heating isn't working" or something similar. We don't even introduce ourselves to the tenants and one property is literally 6 doors away round the corner. They don't even know who we are or where we live. Sit back and let the agents earn their 10%
 

Timbo

Member
Location
Gods County
4 family rentals,use agent to find tenants,contracts and checks but do viewings ourselves.Do management our selves as paying 10% for them to answer a phone,ring a tradesman to solve problem with no regard to cost is ridiculous.

I cannot like this enough!!!

I have 4 properties and do exactly the same. Fee to an agent to vet potentials that I usually refer then to, then I take over.. I do viewings, all docs and management etc.
 

Bloders

Member
Location
Ruabon
Very true, I've tried a few over the years, amazIng how their own rules are inflicted on others, i really lost it with one of the bigger agents who insisted I sign a disclaimer to protect them from letting the house with a gas certificate, even though there is no gas for miles.



I know all about the Welsh job, it's frustrating to say the least! This post was about English property so not so dramatic! Facebook is hilarious, one nice gent got upset when I declined his request to live there with NINE children, 2 dogs and then accuses me being crooked for asking for a deposit!

Never got on with gum tree need to look at that
sorry, dont advertise on facebook.
Join the house groups and then trawl through the post of people looking for a house, do a bbit of research on them (are their profiles scabby etc) and then contact them with your proprety. saves having the doorknobs pesking you
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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