[jjames]

Hi

I have been doing work for countrywide residential lettings for a couple of years. Today I was asked to sign a contract confirming that I was willing to have 10% + vat diducted from my invoice to pay the property managers bonus. Basically they want me to add 10% to my bill so they can diduct it later with out the landlords knowing. I dont agree with this and have said no. What do you think and have you been told yet.

Justin

[Oneills onb]

Hi

We do alot of end of tenancy cleaning for them & other agents most agents use this to make their money as you say, all we do is add the extra % on to the invoice so we don't lose any money and it's a win win for every for one body. I do work for some agents where they take 20% + vat but they are always the nice big jobs where we can get away with adding more then that.

Beware as you might now lose alot of work by not saying yes to it there will always be another cleaner happy to do this sort of thing 

[gwrightson]

I cant see a problem

I often add 10% on to a quote for a couple of people i do work for, because i know i pay them 10%  of the invoice total. like wise I clean other peoples homes for nothing, because they give me large commercial jobs,
I would be a fool not to, same old story, you scratch my back , i,ll scratch yours.
Geoff

[mk1]

Agent's duties to his Principal:

to follow instructions
to exercise due care and skill
to carry out instructions personally
to keep account of money owed
not to allow a conflict of interest
not to make a secret profit
not to take a bribe


we will not work for these agents it is completly immoral and i think illegal if they do not tell the lanlord of the property after all they are working for the landlord and so are you. the landlord pays the invoice not the tennant any more. things have change alot since the tennants deposit shceme was introduced.

just my HONEST opinion

[BDCS]

I work for several letting agents and of them all only one does this. They deducted 10% of my invoice and sent me an invoice for this amount . I was'nt happy about it and I said this - they stopped using me. I think if you want the work say nowt and play their game, can you afford to be moral ?

[jjames]

I am sticking with my morals on this one as I would prefer to work for honest people and honest busineses as I do think this is just a stealth tax on the landlord. If I was a landlord and I found that I was paying an extra 10% to line the pockets of the property manager after paying 15% of the total rent for them to manage my property I would be livid.

Justin

Ps I am glad some others have morals too

[The Great One]

Agent's duties to his Principal:

to follow instructions
to exercise due care and skill
to carry out instructions personally
to keep account of money owed
not to allow a conflict of interest
not to make a secret profit
not to take a bribe


we will not work for these agents it is completly immoral and i think illegal if they do not tell the lanlord of the property after all they are working for the landlord and so are you. the landlord pays the invoice not the tennant any more. things have change alot since the tennants deposit shceme was introduced.

just my HONEST opinion

This is incorrect

Whoever the invoice is made ot to is the legal payer of the bill, so if it's made out to the letting agent, they pay the bill and are still liable to pay even if the landlord doesn't pay them (havng this one at the moment myself)

the tennant does pay the bill if they are found liable for any damage done, the only difference is that you may need to quote to get the work, if the tenant agress then they pay out of their deposit, should they not agree it goes into dispute and the landlord can then pay to get the work done quicker.

I have one agent that takes 10%, doesn't bother me one iota, they bury me in work in summer.

Either accept it or don't, if you don't then they are queing up to take your place. 10% of nothing is still nothing, 10% of £35,000 still leaves you with £31,500.

Regards

Martin

[jjames]

My point is that the landlords dont know about the 10% so it is theft in a sense. If they were told and knew about it in my opinion it would then be above board. I don't like dodgy dealings and back handers. I will not continue working for them as there are a lot of better customers out there who deserve my honest reliable service.

Justin

[mk1]

Agent's duties to his Principal:

to follow instructions
to exercise due care and skill
to carry out instructions personally
to keep account of money owed
not to allow a conflict of interest
not to make a secret profit
not to take a bribe


we will not work for these agents it is completly immoral and i think illegal if they do not tell the lanlord of the property after all they are working for the landlord and so are you. the landlord pays the invoice not the tennant any more. things have change alot since the tennants deposit shceme was introduced.

just my HONEST opinion

This is incorrect

Whoever the invoice is made ot to is the legal payer of the bill, so if it's made out to the letting agent, they pay the bill and are still liable to pay even if the landlord doesn't pay them (havng this one at the moment myself)

the tennant does pay the bill if they are found liable for any damage done, the only difference is that you may need to quote to get the work, if the tenant agress then they pay out of their deposit, should they not agree it goes into dispute and the landlord can then pay to get the work done quicker.

I have one agent that takes 10%, doesn't bother me one iota, they bury me in work in summer.

Either accept it or don't, if you don't then they are queing up to take your place. 10% of nothing is still nothing, 10% of £35,000 still leaves you with £31,500.

Regards

Martin

yes you are quite right martin except all our invoices are made out into the landlords name care of which ever letting agent we are working for.....the agent is just that a middle man we are still working for the landlord.

alot of this comes from un proffesional agents any decent agent will not do this or should tell the landlord i wonder how the landlord would react if they knew or there bills are being inflated by 10%. i think they would look for another agent.

[martin19842]

hi there

the managing agent is purely that, the agent!!
suppliers whether they be cleaners or electricians are infact working for the landlord whether that is an idividual or a company. and as such all invoices should be passed to them.

the agent is not party to the contract between the carpet cleaner and the landlord.

the agant makes their money by charging either a percentage of the rent revenue per month, or in the case of managing agents that manage blocks of flats, they charge an annual fee.

the rules and regualtions are quite clear about this,
if the agent is passing another invoice to the landlord for the supplier works, then any decent landlord should ask a question as to why.

the other side of the coin is that some md's of managing agent companies take a very grim view of their indivdual property managers doing this sort of thing, i have known of property managers loose their job
over this practice.

regards

martin

[Oneills onb]

Hi
I know off at least 4 big name agents who all take out a % so its not just the un proffesional agents who do this!

Some times Most landlords know about this as they see it as no hassle for them all they get is their money at the end of the month and thats it, I have even had 1 landlord who has aksed to take % out on my invoices cos the agents didnt do as the tenants were paying for the service!!

You will find a few agents that wont do this but 9 times out of 10 they all will as martin has said he gets alot of work out of doing it which in fact i think most of us get our work from doing this,

Well worth thinking about before saying no to tho, if you don't need the work then fine but there is a lot of work that can come from agents  

[Colin Stokes]

Just to add my thoughts;

If you talk about Managing Agents and they ask you do that - they are breaking both RICS Codes of Practice and ARMA Rules & Regs and could well get expelled from both (if they were members) which would severely affect their business.

If the cleaning for Countrywide is on behalf of the landlord and you invoice landlord c/o agent and they pay you on landlords behalf from held funds (which is usual practice) and they have you add 10% and the landlord does not know or has not approved it (via their agreement) then they are breaking ARLA regs and the same applies.

May also be similar to recent Office of Fair Trade case against Foxtons

The crux is does the landlord know? and if not report them to ARLA (if they are members)

[Goldfinch PCS]

Agent's duties to his Principal:

to follow instructions
to exercise due care and skill
to carry out instructions personally
to keep account of money owed
not to allow a conflict of interest
not to make a secret profit
not to take a bribe


we will not work for these agents it is completly immoral and i think illegal if they do not tell the lanlord of the property after all they are working for the landlord and so are you. the landlord pays the invoice not the tennant any more. things have change alot since the tennants deposit shceme was introduced.

just my HONEST opinion

The money comes out the deposit these days, I have at least one a week from tenants in apartments trying not to loose their deposit. It is now compulsory in most contracts for the tenant to clean the carpets and cooker before they leave.

[London and Essex]

Like many of us here, I have worked for a number of the big agents and many local small agents. Never had issues with the bigger companies (well not over them asking to us to pay a commision!) but did find one local company insisiting having worked for them for 6 months, to add 8% - for the very fact they only wanted one invoice and this was what they sent the landord it could not detail for example Management Fee but was hidden within the the work actually done and for them to deduct the 8% from the total on paying me meant unbalanced accounts and I simply would not entertain this.

On further `discussions` with the Property Managers, it appears they knew nothing of getting any additional `bonus` but in fact it was the greedy owner taking it all.....the Rolls Royce he had parked outside his office each day obviously needed petrol!!

So, lost revenue....yes! Until one of the PM`s moved to another company and called us in to do all their work.......straight as a dye!