Advice needed about a letting agent’s full management contract?

What additional costs have you incurred? Whilst I appreciate that the agent should have picked up on some of if not all of these points during their inspection, if the items needed fixing anyway would being aware of them earlier have reduced the cost to fix?

Can you prove that the damage was there when the agents inspected? Probably not, unless the tenants reported it to you in which case why didn't you fix it then?
And were the repair costs inflated as a result of the council inspection (strict timeline) or was that a normal market cost?
You can ask them for a part refund (if you had to pay over the odds),you can try small claims if that doesn't work but you'll probably end up swallowing the loss and moving on

When we startedin BTL we used an agent but became rather more than dissilusioned by a far worse situation, the near glowing report was itself undermined by their own pictures. We came to realise that interim inspections do little more than enable the agen to discharge their "contracted service level" and have little to do with your interest, most inspectors are naive and hurried, worse still, a tenant may be perfect until the last day's leaving party, we concluded that self management and engagement with maintenance was a much better option.

I'd forget any notion of costs unless you can easi prove that agent neglect had directly caused issues to be exaccerbated, not easy.

Dear Gul

I don’t know if your agent provides you with a checklist of exactly what will be included in the periodic inspection – if they do then it is the exception rather than the rule.
When we carry out interim inspections as part of the full management contract, it is principally to confirm matters such as there are no unauthorised occupants in situ; that there’s no evidence of smoking or drug use; that there are no pets unless permission has previously been given; that the property is being looked after with no obvious damp/mould due to lack of ventilation (as opposed to say, blocked guttering or breached dampcourse; that there are no obvious fire or health and safety hazards and finally, that any appliances or furniture supplied by the landlord remain fit for purpose and do not need replacing.
If a much more detailed inspection is required by the landlord then that is chargeable as an extra cost on top of the management fee payable – we can’t recall a single landlord opting for this in the last 14 years but if you want to ensure that future inspections are much more comprehensive, then this should be discussed with your agent and any additional fee to cover the extra time it would take should be negotiated
All of the items identified by the council but not by your agent would have to be dealt with anyway, so you have no claim that these costs were only incurred because they weren’t picked up by your agent during the inspection.
Finally, good luck if you go ahead with self-managing your 3 b-t-l properties. Are you sufficiently knowledgeable on the over 168 pieces of legislation that a landlord must adhere to and where the laws are constantly changing and growing.

Council inspectors have to justify their time and their recommendations are often over-zealous. I have no idea of the seriousness of each individual issue you mention, but overall they don't sound that serious. Your agent may have have concluded that they were not serious enough to warrant repair, although they should have mentioned them. I don't think you're due any kind of compensation.

I would also advise you to be very careful about managing the property yourself if you don't know what you're doing lest you fall foul of one of the 160+ laws that govern property letting.

Reply to the comment left by Jonathan at 29/03/2023 - 12:11
As another agent (30+ years), I'm with Jonathan.

To some extent we rely on tenants reporting faults and the inspection visit gives them the opportunity to do so - many can't be bothered to phone us when things go wrong.

When we inspect the tenants have varying levels of engagement; there will be furniture, toys, clothes, etc. not to mention the tenants themselves trying to get on with their lives.

We use Inventory Hive to record inspections, which includes photographs. It's not foolproorf, though as it's not a building survey - merely review that the property is in reasonable condition and the tenants are functioning as we expect.

Dear All
Thank you for all your valuable comments here. broken lock, damp, damage to door should have been picked up by letting agent, pretty easy to pick up or tenant should have reported to letting agent. I have since left the letting agent and paid their fee to come out of their contract. I have decided to fully manage my properties myself, as it is my properties and all I want to see is my properties are kept to a high standard. Thank you all again