Commentary on Sections Part 3 Miscellaneous and General Summary and background Section 83: Duty of letting agents to publicise fees etc
456.This section imposes a duty on letting agents to publicise ‘relevant fees’ (see commentary on section 85) and sets out how they must do this.
457.Subsection (2) requires agents to display a list of their fees at each of their premises where they deal face to face with customers and subsection (3) requires them to also publish a list of their fees on their website where they have a website.
458.Subsection (4) sets out what must be included in the list as follows. Subsection (4)(a) requires the fees to be described in such a way that a person who may have to pay the fee can understand what service or cost is covered by the fee or the reason why the fee is being imposed. For example, it will not be sufficient to call something an ‘administration fee’ without further describing what administrative costs or services that fee covers.
459.Subsection (4)(b) requires that where fees are charged to tenants the list should make clear whether the fee relates to each tenant under a tenancy or to the property. Finally, subsection (4)(c) requires the list to include the amount of each fee inclusive of tax, or, where the amount of the fee cannot be determined in advance a description of how that fee will be calculated. An example might be where a letting agent charges a landlord based on a percentage of rent.
460.Subsection (6) applies to letting agents who hold money on behalf of their clients as part of their letting agent or property management work. As well as publicising their fees, the agent must publish a statement which states whether or not that agent is a member of a client money protection scheme.
461.Subsection (7) means that agents who are required to belong to a redress scheme for dealing with complaints must publish which redress scheme they are a member of.
462.Subsection (8) enables the appropriate national authority to specify in regulations other ways in which letting agents must publicise details of their fees and the details that must be published. This could be used, for instance, to require letting agents to include information about fees in advertisements.
463.Subsection (9) defines a client money protection scheme and a redress scheme. A client money protection scheme is defined as a scheme which enables a client on whose behalf a letting agent holds money to be compensated by that scheme if all or part of that money is not repaid in circumstances where the scheme applies. A redress scheme is defined as a scheme which has been approved by the Secretary of State by order under section 83 or 84 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.