Pagan Osbourne - breaking the law?

[mb667584]

Me n my mates were in Pagan Osbourne looking for a flat & found out they charge a non-refundable £40 each "reservation fee".

I was under the impression that this was illeagl - on page 12 of the Union's 'How To Rent' guide it says "Do not be charged for the signing of the contract - this is illegal".

Does anyone know anything more on the matter - is it a loop-hole that they're technically allowed to do this since they're not actually saying "Pay £40 or you can't sign the lease", even tho this is in effect what is happening since they won't let you put you're name down for the place without first paying them the non-refundable £40?

It's so dishonest, if all they wanted to do was disuade people from putting their names down for places then deciding they don't want it at the last minute they'd make it a deposit that you get back once you sign the lease. It's just another kick in the balls with this whole flat thing, it's so exhorbatent now and to pay a one-off screw you fee has not made me a happy bunny.

[macgamer]

I'm with Pagan Osborne and they didn't do that to me last year. Also be warned there is no such thing as monthly rent with them one lump sum each semester - not nice.

[niall]

Quoting mb667584 from 12:32, 10th Jan 2006
Me n my mates were in Pagan Osbourne looking for a flat & found out they charge a non-refundable £40 each "reservation fee" or some crap like that!

it sounds more like that they will hold the flat for you for £40 until you decide you want it, might want to check tho!

[hr]

do you have a tastyspoon?

http://www.tastyspoon.com/forum

[mb667584]

The £40 you must pay is NON-REFUNDABLE. That means they don't refund it to you (i.e. they never give you the money back). You have to pay it to them at the point of putting your name down for one of their flats.

[hr]

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[Pan]

Quoting macgamer from 12:36, 10th Jan 2006
lso be warned there is no such thing as monthly rent with them one lump sum each semester - not nice.

I like that way of payment. Means I pay it all at one point and don't spend the rent on DVDs instead....

But what is annoying is that the rent is due in a few days BEFORE the student loan comes in.


As for the £40, is that not classed as part of the deposit?

[hr]

"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

[sabra_girl]

Nope, it's not deducted from the eventual deposit (which is usually 5 weeks' rent) and is per person, not even per property. Even though last year we stayed in the same house we still had to pay it. It's gone from £25 to £40 in the last 2 years I think. Ain't inflation a bugger? *cough*

[hr]

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[flarewearer]

They do that in Edinburgh certainly, you pay the half the deposit and an agent's fee up front just to hold the flat, and it isn't yours until the contract is signed and the full deposit payed. Should you defualt on the rest of the deposit or fail to sign the contract then you can't get the fee back, you can only get it back if the agent pulls out. At least you didnt have to take up an insurance policy like we did here before we could complete the lease, and technically we are meant to use the agent's preferred utility suppliers as they are obviously taking a cut (even thought that didnt stop us changing to what's cheapest for us though.) That said, the flat is a lot nicer than a lot of the hovels other places offer, we beat £25 a month off the rent out of them and they pretty much leave us alone and we've had no complaints at the improvements and alteration's we've made : landlord's in St Andrews might not be so kind at you throwing out their furniture, painting the front door and pulling out kitchen units to put your own, better ones in.
Letting agent's will find ever more devious ways to squeeze money out of you as it is the y that are in the position to turn prospecitve tenants away, and not the other way around. My only advice would be stand your ground and find inventive ways to screw THEM over.
And as ALWAYS, the best piece of advice to a tenant is NEVER pay your last month's rent, cancel the D/D and write and tell them they can collect the rent out of your deposit. By the time they find out there's nothing they can do anyway, and if there really ARE any damages, they'd have to pursue you legally for them, which means they'd have to PROVE that you did something rather than just withold your deposit and claim you did.

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[Amorphous]

My friend and I noticed that line at the top of the flat-list and immediately abandoned the idea of getting anything from Pagan Osborne since our two other prospective flatmates weren't back yet and in any case none of us could afford to pay it. What intrigued me is that it goes on to say that if you haven't supplied references etc. within a week the flat will be offered 'to an alternative group' - do the second lot get charged £40 then, or did they have the pleasure of paying it immediately just to be next in line?

Does anyone know if any other estate agents use the same trick?

[Akasha]

i rented with Eve Brown last year and we pre-arranged with them to pay the rent a few days later when we signed the contract but when we got out deposits back in august they charged each of us £15 each time for the pleasure without telling us that they were going to! *bloody cheek*

[Cain]

Quoting flarewearer from 14:24, 10th Jan 2006
That said, the flat is a lot nicer than a lot of the hovels other places offer, we beat £25 a month off the rent out of them and they pretty much leave us alone and we've had no complaints at the improvements and alteration's we've made : landlord's in St Andrews might not be so kind at you throwing out their furniture, painting the front door and pulling out kitchen units to put your own, better ones in.

My flat mate negotiated us paying an extra £25/month before we moved in (leaving the flat hunting to him while I was out of the country was, without a doubt, the dumbest thing i could have done, short of invading Russia in the winter.)


[hr]

I hold an element of surprise

[mb667584]

As for the £40, is that not classed as part of the deposit?

If you read what I originally posted, you will see I mention that the £40 is NON-refundable, meaning that they do not refund it to you. They do not pay you any portion of the £40 back. It does not, under any circumstances, get returned to you. The £40 is theres to keep regardsless of anything.

It is not part of the deposit. It's a one off payment and an example of them cynically trying to squeez as much money out of you as possible.

My point was, since they don't let you put your name down for a flat and thus sign the lease untill you pay this and it's aparantly illeagl to charge a fee for the signing of the lease, isn't the act of charging this one-off, just for-the-fun-it £40 fee breaking the law?

It's also interesting to note that if you don't hand in the photocpoy of your matric card, refernces etc within 7 days they don't give you any reminders before putting the flat back up on the 'market' and getting another sweet £40 each of the next bunch of suckers that go for the flat you had.

Dicks.

[hr]

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[Jen_T]

Quoting mb667584 from 18:49, 10th Jan 2006

It's also interesting to note that if you don't hand in the photocpoy of your matric card, refernces etc within 7 days they don't give you any reminders before putting the flat back up on the 'market' and getting another sweet £40 each of the next bunch of suckers that go for the flat you had.

[hr]

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I do agree that it's a bit unfair, especially if other letting agents don't do it, but as an adult, do you really need a reminder from someone to sort your own life out?

[womble chris]

if they didnt charge £40 at person person then thaey'd just put the rental price up by £1 per person per week.

It is more efficient for them to charge us £40 rather than increasing the weekly rent as that means they are ensuring that when people say they are going to take the flat/house, they dont carry on searching for a better property.

To me, it makes sense, although yes it could easily be a deposit for when the lease is signed, but as some people want to pay by card, it is not as easy to refund that as it is to just instead keep it rather than increasing the rent prices by £1 and having the deposit system for leasing.

I really dont see a problem with this, in fact i much prefer it to other estate agents, where you dont know where you stand, at leat here you know if you have the flat one way or the other, rather than being put on a list or selected by somewhat random means.

[Bonnie]

Womble chris,
You think they didn't put the rent up anyway and charge the extra money?

There's no doubt about it, every single one of the estate agents in town are crooks. To make matters worse, they're all in each other's pockets so there's no competition. CEOs of larger companies get sent to jail for doing exactly what they're doing-- fixing prices.

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I love cheese.

[Eliot Wilson]

Agency fees are a pretty standard part of renting life, aren't they? They were in Edinburgh and are in London; can't remember if I paid one in St Andrews (though one of my flats was rented through a private landlord anyway).

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[womble chris]

firstly, of course they have done both - charge the £40 and rent rise, but they would of put an additional pound rise if there were no charge.

and bonnie, although i hate my degree economics, ec4501 tomorrow, will go bad, it clearly isnt fixed pricing in operation. the reason the prices as so high is that that is the most they believe they can rent out their houses for.

they do not try to out-cut each other in terms of prices as they do not need to attract each others customers, as is why firms do cut prices.
There is so much demand for the limited number of rental houses, that they charge as much as they can to rent all their properties.
if there was a much larger supply of housing, then they would try to undercut each other as they would need to try to win the rivals customers, but without a large enough then the getting the maximum rental price is the aim for the estate agents rather than trying to entice new customers with lower prices than the market price.