As had been widely expected, the chancellor today announced that lettings agents fees to tenants will be banned.
In his Autumn Statement, Philip Hammond told the House of Commons: “In the private rental market, letting agents are currently able to charge unregulated fees to tenants.We have seen these fees spiral, often to hundreds of pounds.
“This is wrong. Landlords appoint letting agents and landlords should meet their fees. So I can announce today that we will ban fees to tenants as soon as possible.”
However, the announcement was criticised by eMoov founder and CEO, Russell Quirk.
He said: “Today’s announcement on rental fees is nothing more than opportunistic tokenism and surprisingly is stolen straight from Labour’s manifesto. Interestingly the chancellor’s own housing minister, Gavin Barwell, described banning lettings fees as “a bad idea” as recently as September.
“It is ironic that the government should be turning its guns again on the private rental sector, given that the absence of government action in building affordable homes to rent in the social housing sector has led to private landlords having to fill the gap on their behalf.
“A ban on tenancy referencing fees is great on the face of it but the reality is that the agent will make their money regardless and this will be passed onto the landlord and in turn the tenant through higher rents. We’ve seen the same thing happen in Scotland whereby the landlord must charge more to the tenant in rent to cover the increase charged by the agent, you would think the government would have known this.”