[Phil Marlor]

I have been approached by a leading Estate Agent with regards to them giving me all their letting CC work for a fee of £20.00 per month.

He has asked me to visit next week.

Is this another scam or are Estate Agents begining to work this way, making a few ££ for themselves at no expense.

Anyone any ideas or done this type of thing before.

Phil

[Shaun_Ashmore]

My letting agents take 5% of my invoice as commission, I prefer it that way it's fairer, it is in his interest to give me work and knowone feels ripped off, I just calculate it into my price. The agent may or may not know this but I suppose he gets more money for it.

Shaun

[Len Gribble]

Phil

Are you guaranteed the work say three job per month @ more then £20 per job?

Shaun

Mine work the other way round my bill is my bill what they put on that is not my problem.

Len

[HQCS (John Kastrian)]

An agent we used to work for,demanded that we "load" our invoice by 10%.
Ie if an invoice amount totalled £100,they wanted us to invoice them for £110-00.
They would then present this invoice to the outgoing tenant,and get the full inv amount from them,and then pay us £100,so all our settled invoices would be 10% short.
I told them if they wanted to extort money from their tenants,they should do it under their own letterhead and not mine,and had nothing to do with it as I considered it unethical business practice.
On the subject of paying for work,there is no guarantee that you will get any work,but 20 squid is not much to risk anyway.
We have also had numerous scams offered to us asking to pay for work,costing anything up to £800 a year.
Personally,I would never entertain it, it is down to the individual if they take up these offers or not.

[Phil Marlor]

Shaun,

I like your idea of giving them a commission, that way the more work they give me the more money they earn.

Everyones a winner!

I will put that to him, if he dosn't agree he can stuff it!

Phil

[strakercleaning]

I do work for one estate agent in SW London who adds up the work he has put my way then reckons on doing his carpets at home for the 5% value.......................sure the others in the office dont know that he benefits in this way but he is the boss.
He has wood floors downstairs but his job still equates to £210 worth..........means he has already given me work worth over £4k.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Back hander or perks of the job call it what you will but my conscience doesn't take a battering it's called business and I have been learning the hard way for years and still am!

Shaun

Ps.Chris does your letting agent pay your fees for coming into our fine capital city or do you put it ontop of the price of the cleaning (point in here somewhere)?

[strakercleaning]

Shaun, Price as per pricelist but would give him 10-15% discount anyway :
This way he spends nothing and i clean his carpets at the going rate
He is only based in Battersea so it takes 20 - 30 mins to get there and no Congestion Charge

[The Great One]

Hi

Letting agents work under different ways. Some I work for take 10% of my invoice plus VAT on that 10%.

Others will charge the tenant 1 weeks rent for calling me in. It is in their agreement that they sign when they take on the property.

If you want £100 and they take on 10% then you have to add on more that a tenner as 10% would be £11 plus the VAT so an invoice of about £115 needs to be put in to cover the agents fee.

Shaun is quite correct, it is business and not an underhanded way to do it, the tenant is aware (if they bother to read the tenancy agreement that is!)

Regards

Martin

[Ken Wainwright]

When an agent arranges for a contractor to carry out work at a landlords/tennants home, he incurs costs. As a business, everything needs to be costed. So to make a charge for providing a service is quite normal and acceptable.

Now what we need to consider is, does the agent create a situation whereby the service charge becomes a non-taxed benefit to an individual member of staff, or something that is genuinely processed through the books.

For myself, my business approach has always been that my services will be employed because I perform a first class, safe clean, arrive on time, am courteous and polite. In other words, the agent and landlord/tennant has a hassle free experience. If they want me to pay them for providing this quality service, they can go forth and multiply.

Safe and happy cleaning
Ken

[magic_carpet]

be carefull!
i had a similar offer and the chance to go on there wall planner two years ago. they told me i'd be the only one and i'd get all the rentals carpets for a one off sum. when the planner arrived i saw that two other cc's were on it and i hit the roof. i found out that it was an indepenant company putting this thing together for the estate agents and the agents knew nothing about what was being offered to sell the adverts on the planner. so i went through hell getting (some)money back and the planner company told me they had sacked the salesman. a year later the same salesman rang me to ask if i'd like to go onto another company's planner ect ect. it was great to get that bas----d!!back on the phone i can tell you--years of anger management out the window!!so check that they are who they say they are. but at the end of the day you're only paying monthly so you could throw £20 at it and see how it goes. good luck agent work is my fav, get some property management companies on board as well and you'll be doing fine. jim

[easi-kleen]

I am finding more and more that its the out going tenants who employ me. its in their contracts to have the carpets cleaned and provide a receipt

This suits me fine as no waiting to get paid.

Phil