Tenants left 'vulnerable' over £10k unlawful fees

Elizabeth Murray said the stress caused by having to pay the unlawful fees was "horrible"

A tenant said she and her family were left feeling "really vulnerable" after being charged unlawful fees totalling more than £10,000.

Elizabeth Murray, 36, signed a contract agreeing to pay for services including professional carpet, chimney and oven cleaning at the west Norfolk home she rented while working as an NHS hospital doctor during the Covid pandemic.

Such fees are banned by a law and campaigners Generation Rent said it was likely many more people across the country were getting "ripped off".

Letting agent Sowerbys and landlords Graham and Victoria Bray did not respond to requests for comment.

Dr Murray and her husband, an NHS surgeon, moved into the four-bedroom house with their daughter in 2019 when their son was born, paying £1,500 rent per month.

“We weren't in a position to buy at that point. We'd spent a lot of money on IVF and had fertility issues, so we wanted to rent somewhere," she said.

Dr Murray said the property's owners wanted to see proof that "contractors" had been used and that a "breakdown" must be available.

Dr Murray said, after two years, it was costing them "a fortune".

"It was becoming really stressful; it was becoming very overwhelming, and once we figured out that we were liable for so much money for this property, my husband got really depressed... he became really unwell," she said.

"We didn't want to move - we were settled - but it was getting to the point where we were going to have to just find somewhere.

"It was horrible. Suddenly we felt very vulnerable.

"It became one of the worst times of our life."

Dr Murray worked as an accident and emergency doctor at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King's Lynn, throughout the Covid pandemic

The BBC understands Norfolk Trading Standards has issued fines to both the Brays and Norfolk-based Sowerbys over the unlawful fees.

Dr Murray said: “It was a relief to finally have someone turn round and say 'Yeah, this was wrong.'”

Now she and her husband are considering legal action against both landlords and agent to try to recover the unlawful fees.

The Brays have not responded to requests for comment

"These people need to be held to account and at this point I just want to protect other people from having to go through what we've been through," said Dr Murray.

Paul Cunningham, chairman of Eastern Region Landlords Association, said the Tenant Fees Act 2019 set out what charges were and were not allowed.

Besides rent, permitted charges include a deposit, council tax and utilities bills.

Mr Cunningham listed items that tenants could not be charged for, including viewing a property, inventory, a guarantor, checkout fees, cleaning and gardening.

Letting agent Sowerbys has yet to comment

On such unlawful fees being charged, he said: "I would like to think it's not that common... It really doesn't help give landlords and agents a good professional name."

He advised any tenant who found they were being charged such fees to speak to their landlord in the first instance, and then to Trading Standards if necessary.

He warned landlords and tenants breaking these laws faced fines of up to £5,000 for their first offence, subsequently rising to £30,000.

Anyone charging such fees "really need to review their working practices", he said.

"What they are doing is prohibited - they could find themselves with this massive fee and, of course, they could find themselves banned from being a landlord under some circumstances as well."

Dan Wilson Craw, deputy chief executive of pressure group Generation Rent, said: "Disputes about cleaning costs are one of the more common issues we see arising from the Tenant Fees Act, which is largely doing a good job of saving tenants money.

“It is likely that a lot of renters are being ripped off by landlords charging them professional cleaning costs.

"Tenants who are charged an extra fee for maintenance should remember that if they are charged an illegal fee they are protected from no-fault eviction.

"And if cleaning costs are deducted from the deposit at the end of the tenancy, they could be challenged through the deposit scheme."

What can tenants still be charged for?

The only payments you can now be asked for in England are:

• the rent

• a refundable tenancy deposit capped at no more than five weeks’ rent where your total annual rent is less than £50,000, or six weeks’ rent where your total annual rent is £50,000 or above

• a refundable holding deposit (to reserve a property) capped at no more than one week’s rent

• payments to change the tenancy when requested by the tenant, capped at £50, or reasonable costs incurred if higher

• payments associated with early termination of the tenancy, when requested by the tenant

• payments in respect of utilities, communication services, TV licence and council tax; and

• a default fee for late payment of rent and replacement of a lost key/security device giving access to the housing, where required under a tenancy agreement

Source: Tenant Fees Act 2019