Letting Agent Lease Query

I am using a letting agent to rent out my house.

I will be paying them a monthly fee to manage property.

they are [resently credit checking suitable tenants, and I asked them today for a copy of the lease they will be using to give to tenants to sign...they refused saying they don't send out leases by email; and the only way I can read lease is by calling into their offices and reading it.

Property and agency in UK so not possible to 'drop in'; besides, i'm a bit put out that they won't let me see the lease?????

Should I be concerned and what can I do / say here?

Thanks,

Anna

I reckon they don't want you to get hold of the lease so next time you go to let it out, you'd be able to copy and let directly. Maybe suggest that you will have to take your business elsewhere as you need to see a copy of what you are undertaking with the tenant? They could send you a "read-only" file which means if you wanted to copy it you would have to re-type every wors (it would be easier to go pick up a standard form in any bookstore)

Yeah, thats what I thought...

Plus, at the most basic level, if I own the property and I am hiring them to provide a service, I want to be clear that certain things are in the lease:

For example: My contact details are not in it (I've heard of this happening);
and the arrangements for inspections on the property????

Anna

Why are you using a UK based co if the property is in Ireland.I used to use a letting agent myself but now i do it my self .Afterall if anything goes wrong they'll ring you to fix it or charge you to sort it out. Theres a web site called www.Irishlandlord.com and they have free downloads of lease agreements and other useful stuff.

WIFESLIST - you misunderstood. both the property and the agency are in the UK.

OH sorry about . i was looking into starting a property inventory business here myself and as part of my searches i found some english web sites that offer the same service re free downloads of lease agreements etc also there are other tenant issues in the uk that have to be taken into account. I dont know though if lease agreements would be fairly universal ie would the one off the irish site even be any use as a guide re any issues you might have cheers

It sounds dodgy to me.

The fees you are paying them, are they a flat fixed monthly fee or are they based on a % of annual rent?

The only reason I'm asking is they could be telling you they are getting (say) £1,000 a month and lodge this directly into your account, and in the meantime the tenant could be paying them (say) £1,200 as prescibed in the lease drawn up by them. [Sorry for being paranoid - it was the first thing I thought about after reading your query]

Are they one of the larger letting agencies like Foxtons, Knight Frank?? If so then you probably have nothing to fear.