Matthew's Journal

It might be worth mentioning the shocking lies that are frequently told to lettings agents by various members of the public. These come from foreign workers as well as UK nationals.

It might be worth mentioning that many lettings agents experience racist tenants, as well as racist landlords. One Chinese applicant once asked, "do many black people live around here?" (we were in Brixton at the time) and I responded, "Yes. It's great. There are many brown, black and white people who live here." That was the end of that deal.

Quite frequently we'd ask "how many people will be living in the property?" and the applicants figured figured that to make us go away and not breach the HMO legislation, it would be safer to say 4... However, it was quite common for hospitality workers (who are more commonly not UK nationals in London) to live 8 or 12 to a house. If the workers told the truth, I had to tell them we couldn't help due to the fact that most landlords won't house 5 or more people due to HMO restrictions (an HMO licence costs £2000).

Then there were the landlords that would say, "I'd rather the tenants weren't black/polish/bulgarian etc." and we'd have to tell them that they couldn't discriminate due to the race law. Well, they'd either instruct us and refuse to house anybody with a "funny" sounding (to them) surname or they'd just go and instruct some other corrupt agent further down the road.

There's also the problem that it's very difficult to obtain rent arrears from people who are no longer in the country. That means that sometimes larger deposits will be requested from people who might fail to pay their rent and then disappear abroad (and we do have them).

We also won't talk about the number of tenants who lie about their earnings and who would never be able to pay rent (by legal means) to the landlords, but who waste a hell of a lot of time trawling around properties.

I know one case of an agent refusing to house a prostitute who tried to rent a flat for a short-term, only to have the landlord insist that he didn't mind any illegal activities! That didn't happen.

There are huge numbers of dodgy tenants trying to "cleanse" dirty money so the agents have to ensure that they're not going to house them too.

Yes, lettings agents can and do behave badly, but I doubt they're any more badly behaved than people within other professions. The lettings industry does have a professional body which requires agents to achieve qualifications and which acts as an industry regulator (sadly, the government haven't made belonging to the body compulsory for all agents yet).

I started off thinking that nothing could surprise or disillusion me about landlords, but I was really horrified by the article. Disenfranchising people at the most basic, basic level - it's just beyond words.