Stop agency fees for tenants and provide a more reflective referencing and contracting price.

A letting agent provides a service to a landlord, and that service is to find them a customer (the tenant.) The landlord will pay the agent their agreed commission, job done.... This is how it should be.

However, Agents have begun the practise of also charging the tenant ludicrous amounts just to move into a new property. In actually fact they are being paid twice, by two different parties for one job. Why on earth is it the tenant's job to pay for a service provided to a landlord and which, in actual fact, has already been paid by the landlord? This is just completely ludicrous?

Along with the usual months rent upfront, the deposit of a month and a 1/2 rent, the totally unreflective and completely unfair referencing costs and administration charge, (usually hundreds times more than the actual cost to the agent.) tenants are being priced out of a home they should be able to afford and it often forces them to take a loan just to move into a new property.

This affects not only the tenant. The landlord is also losing out. In order to justify the extortionate costs of moving into a property, the average monthly rent, has to be slightly decreased. This, of course directly affects the landlords' income. So as well as a shortened market, the landlord is also paying even more, straight into the pocket of the agents without even realising it.

I believe we need to stop the disgusting habit of double charging two different parties against each other for the same service, and also to have a more reflective rates of referencing and contract drawing.

Agencies should no longer be allowed to get away with this...