Imagine renting the same house for several years. Would you be annoyed if the landlord’s estate agent charged you a renewal fee every year instead of letting you sign a multi-year lease?

In this story, one renter is in this situation, but then the law changes in their favor! Apparently, the estate agent knows about this new law because they do everything possible to still try to get that fee.

Let’s read all about it.

£75 Renewal Fee?!?

Backstory: I live in the UK and rent my house as I’m too poor and the property market is insanely pricey, especially in the South East.

Summer 2019, there was a change in the law to help people like me, private renters, to reduce the cost of living and start saving for our own bricks and mortar.

This story takes place around that time.

The landlord doesn’t directly handle the contracts.

Front story: My rental agreement goes through an estate agent, who charges a fee to both myself and my landlord for the privilege of handling the contracts.

Essentially, all they do is change the dates on the contract, bump up the price by £15 and eat a fat slice of cake.

They refuse to give me a contract of longer than 1 year, so they can cash in on the regular.

This renewal of contracts cost me £75 each time. I have no idea how much they charge my landlord…

This is good news!

Last year, however, the laws changed.

One of these law changes was that agents are no longer allowed to charge me the renewal fee. Great, right?!?

Well it gets better; the law changes on July 1st and my contract renews on September 1st. That means I save £75 this year. Extra beer money!

This is pretty sneaky!

Actual story: June 4th. I get a letter from the estate agents asking me to confirm my renewal at + £15, confirm within 14 days and pay £75 renewal fee. If they have not heard from me in 14 days they will consider it as my notice to vacate the property and will advertise the property as available to let.

Hold up…

My contract doesn’t expire for nearly another 3 months?!? Why are they asking me to renew so soon??

I immediately see what’s going on here. Time to play the game.

OP had questions.

June 10th. I respond, asking why the rent has gone up again?

Their reply states that the rental market has improved in the past 12 (10 and a half) months. They also issue the same vague ‘threat’ of re-advertising my home and include the clause “your new contract MUST be signed WITHIN 10 DAYS of you receiving it” if I do wish to renew (remember that bit).

June 16th. I say “Fine. But why am I being asked to sign a renewal when I still have so long left on my current contract?” For context, I only have to give 30 days if I want to end my contract at any time and vacate the property.

They were still being sneaky.

Their response was “We are getting ahead of our contracts, so as not to create a backlog of work”

Yea, right!

This back and forth eats up a few days.

Eventually, I run out of deflection tactics and they send out the contracts. We receive them on the afternoon of June 21st…

It’s all about timing.

I do the maths.

I sign the new contract within 10 days. Well, I actually sign it ON the 10th day. July 1st at 9am. The law changed at midnight, just hours before. They can no longer, legally, ask me to pay the £75 renewal.

I send the contracts back and wait for the fallout.

I half expected to get a late fee, or some other issue so they can scrape that fee back from me.

They were still determined to get that £75!

I don’t hear anything from them for a while, so assume that I’ve played it perfectly.

Late July, I get an email. They require my landlord to get a survey on the property to check the energy economy rating of the house. The cost of this survey??

You guessed it; £75. Luckily it comes out of his pocket and not mine. Poor bloke.

Wow! The estate agent was pretty sneaky and determined to get that extra fee no matter what. At least OP played it smart!

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Another UK native weighs in.

They were definitely sneaky!

This person doesn’t just skim over a lease.

Here’s a brief but strong opinion.

When the law is on your side, don’t back down.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.