My staff and I have been debating for weeks about letting agent charges and whether Limecastle are over or under charging compared to other agents writes Lea Beven.

So I thought this may help you as well when you are picking an agent – a check list of questions to ask and a bit of insider info about fees.

When selecting agents, lots of people choose solely by the fees. Many experienced landlords though will choose based on the level of services offered instead.

It is a fact that if you take a lower fee as an agent, then you have to do many more matches in order to be able to pay your staff and this will mean that you may have less of a budget left for marketing and resources. We know this from experience.

So, as a landlord looking at using a letting agent, a lower fee isn’t necessarily a good thing.

However, it is also not always true that if you pay a higher fee that you will always get a better service – what exactly is your money buying?

When considering which letting agent to go with, here are some questions that you should drop casually into conversation in order to find out which will be your best option.

• On which property portals do you list online?

About 80% of all rental leads come from online and telephone enquiries from property portals so this is an important question.

In your answer you’ll want to have portals including the likes of Rightmove, Zoopla, Home of Property and others.

The most popular portal for tenants to look for rentals is Rightmove followed by Zoopla (you may have seen their adverts on the telly).

Some agents cannot afford to be on Rightmove – that says a lot really.

• Do you list in local newspapers?

Less calls come in as a result of property listing in a newspaper, but it is great for branding and makes you feel good about your property being in the public eye.

• Do you confirm your appointments?

Many tenants won’t turn up for an appointment if it is not confirmed.

Make sure your agent confirms viewings, otherwise you could be left high and dry.

As a landlord, I would insist they call me an hour prior to the appointment to tell me it was still proceeding.

• What if a prospective tenant wants to view out of hours?

Most tenants are working, and cannot always get time off in the day to attend viewings.

Ask what your agents opening hours are – you would expect them really to have one or two late evenings a week, and have the facility to offer weekend viewings.

Ideally your agent would be great if they offered a door to door service for your tenants that do not have transport, many people that come to view are from out of area and arrive on the train.

• Does your agent advise you about pets properly?

43% of all tenants have pets. Many agents don’t tell you this and operate a no pet policy.

This may be fine for you, but if your property is empty for three months and you lose £1500 – was it really worth turning pets down?

Cutting your market down by half can potentially cause you a money haemorrhage.

There is specialist insurance for tenants with pets that covers up to £700 of pet damage.

You can enter a cleaning clause into the tenancy agreement and ask for proof that the property has been professionally cleaned.

• What does the fee include?

Some agents charge a fixed fee that includes everything; others charge a low fee and add on other essential elements.

Ideally for a tenant find only service you want a flat fee that includes the tenancy agreement, references, viewings.

For a managed let you want the full service including tenancy, deposit protection, inventory, check-in and referencing.

• Who do you use for deposit protection?

You must get proof for your own protection that your tenants deposit is protected.

Ideally you want it to go in to government scheme where the government holds the money and not one that the agency holds the money themselves.

If the agency was to go bump, you could lose the deposit, but you would still have to pay back the tenant.

I personally recommend the DPS (Deposit Protection Service)

You should also be aware that if there is no inventory done on the property, there is no point in taking a deposit, as you must be able to prove that the damage has occurred to deduct the costs.

Let-only fees

If you are being charged between £100 and £250 for a let only, I would strongly advise you to ask all of the above questions, as it may be that you are paying less for a lesser service.

Not always – as there are a few cheap and cheerful agents that do perform well. I would not really expect out of hours viewings for this charge. Expect to get what you pay for.

If you are charged £250 to £400 make sure you are being listed in the portals like rightmove and that your agent will do out of hour’s viewings. You should expect a reasonable service for these levels of fees.

Above £400, I really would try to find out what your agent thought they were doing that could justify this charge.

Even listing on all the portals, advertising in the papers and operating out of hours I would say this was a lot.

Managed fees

This is a tough one, I would say they should be the same as the let only or a little under due to the fact that you will be giving them a steady monthly income usually between 8% and 12% of your rent.

Find out what managed means – does it include visits to the property or do you pay each visit. Read the small print as often you pay the % fee then pay additional fees for organising works to be done, or they add a bit on to the contractors work.

My tip of the week:

Don’t spend all day calling agents about fees – pick three in your locality (local to the let property is best) and analyse which is the best one.

Consider how quickly your own call gets answered, if it doesn’t then it is likely that your prospective tenants will have the same problem.