Cheap Fees are Worth Every Penny !

Everyone wants to get a good deal, to cut costs and use their money more efficiently. But you have to be careful, sometimes it can be a false economy.

Some services are really important to you and you don’t just want them done, but you need them to be done well.

If you find the absolute cheapest doctor, or dentist, or accountant, or solicitor, or car mechanic, do you think they will give you a better service because you are paying them less ? Very unlikely. And if you really do scour the bottom of the market for the cheapest are they really going to be able to give you an acceptable level of service ?

Let’s be honest, the cheapest providers will not be getting the best employees because they are probably paying the cheapest wages. They have to be cutting costs at every opportunity or the business would be making a loss and the owners will be focused on getting enough cash in the business every month to cover their expenses and not focused on providing quality service.

So, if what you are buying is important to you (like protecting your health, teeth, business accounts etc.) then don’t entrust it the people who will charge the lowest fees. The reality is that the lowest fees will likely get you the lowest level of service.

Choosing a letting agent is surely really important to you as a landlord. They will be looking after your prized asset – your property. If they get it wrong then it can go very badly for you.

Purplebricks are a great example of this. Their business model is to undercut the letting market through very cheap fees but they have failed to properly protect tenant deposits on thousands of properties. This has led to hundreds of Section 21 eviction notices being thrown out in court and potential deposit protection fines of up to £30M !

By law, even where an agent protects the deposit for a landlord, it is the landlords responsibility to ensure that the deposit is protected correctly. When this is not the case, tenants are able to sue landlords for the deposit amount plus up to 3 times the deposit amount, and do this up to 12 months after the tenancy ends.

It remains to be seen whether Purplebricks will cover any of these legal proceedings against landlords they were acting for.

A great example of why cheapest is not always best !