Extortionate fees (From York Press)

Extortionate fees

11:09am Monday 7th January 2013 in Letters By Reader's letter

WHEN will politicians bring the private rental agencies under control?

The rents, dreadful enough, can perhaps be blamed on market forces; but the extra fees they charge are extortionate, and surely a prime target for punitive legislation.

In a recent viewing with an agency, I was informed that “references” would cost £95 per applicant – that is, a fee for someone to type my name into a database and read out the credit rating score.

Then I was told there would also be a £185 non-refundable “holding fee” —-a fee for “taking the property off the market”; in other words a fee for doing nothing at all.

And what if I immediately paid my bond and the first month’s rent, thus committing myself from the off? No difference. This fee is a venal grabbing of renters’ money, safe in the knowledge we have nowhere else to go.

I am sure some internet genius will soon invent an online rental system which will wipe these agencies out of business.

In the meantime, any politician who ran on a ticket of introducing legislation to curb such excesses would surely gather large swathes of that elusive youth vote.

Dr Ben Young, Margaret Street, York