STUART McGINLEY: Ridiculous fees are unfair on tenants

You may remember me saying last year how I was about to get a foot on the housing ladder and buy a house, sadly the deal has fallen through so we are back to square one!

So, we have to start looking for something to rent as a temporary measure and I can’t wait for the letting agents start to running through all the fees you will need to pay, advance deposit etc and your heart sinks as you know this is going to drain your bank account before you’ve even moved in.

All this talk of fees reminds me of a time when we moved out of a home we’d rented for only a few months and we duly followed the advice given to us by the letting agents to make sure we leave the property as we found it, to ensure we would get our deposit back in full.

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I pride myself on my domestic cleaning skills and so spent ages scrubbing and cleaning to make sure the house was spotless, and we fully expected to get our full deposit back with no issue.

Sadly not, despite us having the curtains cleaned, they had found a very small number of dog hairs at the bottom that could be removed easily (charge £45), but then things got very silly. They also had found some dog poo in the garden and even took the trouble to take a photo to show us!

Now, I was convinced I had left the garden clear but it’s possible I had missed one.

However, we were flabbergasted when they informed us we would be charged a fee of £5 for them to clean this up!

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I was tempted to go around and do it myself and charge them the same fee, utterly ridiculous.

Therefore, I hope the government decides to act more on silly and unfair fees.

They know you want your deposit back quickly and if you challenge them, it can delay the process by weeks, it not months.

Yes, it was only a relatively small amount, but still very annoying.

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I will invest in a magnifying glass to inspect the lawn before moving out of this property though!

:: More mutterings on Twitter @stumcginley

:: Hear McGinley in the Morning – weekdays 6-10 on Spirit FM

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