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Agent fee for lease renewal?

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  1. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by Boris:
    Answer to " peace of mind " -
    That the lease is negotiated without loopholes of favour to the landlord and that you have received professional licenced advice for the coming years of continued tenancy.

    That ( if bi lingual ) that both text match without any ambiguities.

    That the contract is IAW the latest law amendments.

    That your lease advising agent has protected you by their need to be regulated by the Estate Agents Ordinance and Code of practice. If the agent has done wrong you can get legal recompense and the agent would also lose their livelihood.

    ON POINT 2 - as you have no knowledge of the work or the industry so your view is worthless

    On Point 3 - Maybe - You can also make out your own will and conveyance your own house. BUT WOULD YOU ??? What about representing yourself in a trail for your life ???

    People always try to take the easy way out to save some dollars and think, when nothing comes round the corner to bite them, that they are really clever people. The odds are not on your side especially when a landlord is looking for ways to get you out and earn more money.

    In the case of the OP - the landlord trusts the agent and that should be an end to it.

    BUT --------------
    If you bought and Oasis ticket cash ( save the CC fee ) then maybe you might have another view. Or maybe you could conveyance your own village house or place on the mainland and watch someone else take over the thing you thought you had bought. That would never happen to you because your such a smart arse - right ????
    Just because your wife's an agent doesn't mean that the whole profession is worth a grand to do fu*k all. I know for a fact that this agent is doing fu*k all. And I will refuse to pay her a grand to do fu*k all. So, go crap on someone else's thread.
    Last edited by falang; 07-05-2008 at 05:28 PM.

  2. #22

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    Aug 2006
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    [quote=shilo507;212803]

    Quote Originally Posted by Claire ex-ax:
    Would you have a copy of that template, perchance?

    /QUOTE]

    Hi Claire, you can purchase standard tenancy agreement forms in larger bookstores or stationery stores. There are spaces for you and the landlord to amend/insert your own clauses (with initials). The forms are green in colour and are in standard format.
    Now that is useful information. Thanks!

  3. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by jimbo:
    Plain and simple

    If the new lease has not been drawn up yet then negotiate the fee thats due to be charged down to say $750 or something like that that, Your trump card is to say that you can get a local colleague to negotiate direct with the landlord thus she gets nothing otherwise.

    Not exactly rocket science.
    This agent will be lucky to get any more than $500 HK out of me for this bs. A local colleague of mine is going to help me negotiate directly with the landlord.

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Boris:
    The normal fees are what your
    Seems your just a tight wad.
    If the landlord insists on the agent then YOU --- can always move -- if you don't like it.
    I don't have $1000 to throw away for a useless service. Do you?

  5. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    Exactly what "peace of mind" does this 7500 fee get you- it's just tweaking a couple of fields in a standard document, as opposed to the agent actually providing any insurance against landlord performance.

    A 50% fee is standard when the agent is trying to find you a place. Quite fair as they have to run around showing you different properties. It doesn't really compare to what in essence is re-signing an existing document. On a per-hour basis, it looks like the agent is charging on par with international tax advisors, which is a bit cheeky.
    Exactly, if this lady was out scouring the streets for various apartments and taking the time to show me each and every one of them, then I would have no qualms in paying her the fee. But of course she isn't this time, and I already have paid her that fee.

    If she or her agency expect $7500 HK from me every two years when I renew the lease, then I will do everything in my power to cut out this bloated middleman, or look for a new place just out of spite and principle (and of course start the cycle all over with a new agent).
    Last edited by falang; 07-05-2008 at 05:36 PM.

  6. #26

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    Boris,

    Point 1. Easy, and maybe vaguely useful to the OP (unlike your shrill contrarian posts): insist that the English version overrides the Chinese (a pretty standard option in HK contracts). Check that the new English version matches the old English version. Done.

    If the agent did a proper job the first time around, you have exactly the same peace of mind. If the agent didn't do a proper job the first time around, then the USD1000 is clearly going to be wasted anyway.

    Point 2. I don't give a toss what you think. You've really convinced me with your clearly superior reasoning skills.

    Point 3. A will- sure. For me, it's a simple situation requiring no unusual considerations. Conveyancing and trials? If you are seriously suggesting that a rental renewal is as complex as either of these examples, then anything you have to say on this thread is clearly not worth consideration.

    Oasis? Village houses? Would you care to bring up any further completely random analogies? I'm sure you could work Goodwin's Law into it with only a little more stretching.


  7. #27

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    [quote=shilo507;212803]

    Quote Originally Posted by Claire ex-ax:
    Would you have a copy of that template, perchance?

    /QUOTE]

    Hi Claire, you can purchase standard tenancy agreement forms in larger bookstores or stationery stores. There are spaces for you and the landlord to amend/insert your own clauses (with initials). The forms are green in colour and are in standard format.
    About the more straight-forward RENEWING of Tenancy Agreements. Don't know much about this issue, so just relating what I know here.

    My brothers own two village houses, and we bought Tenancy Agreement forms from the usual local stationery stores to handle the "renewals" ourselves. (BTW, IF we'd contacted our agent for her assistance - yes, kinda suspect that she would've TRIED to charge us quite a bit as she might've been entitled to... WHEN we were more "green behind the ears"!).

    Being "bbc", our Chinese skills aren't exactly 100% (with reading & writing almost non-existent), so we bought bi-lingual versions of the form template and asked a trusted local friend to help us clarify points of discussion with our current sets of tenants.

    Then, with little modifications to the template mutually agreed, verbally, e.g. one couple wanted a little dog (normally, we'd be iffy 'bout that as the other tenants mightn't appreciate it), BUT they said they'd chat with them, and would properly supervise the dog, keeping it mostly inside, and not let it "take over" the shared garden, so we added that doggie clause in the list of terms & conditions; with our friend writing out the Chinese sentence equivalent.

    After showing all the finalised drafts and before the end of the old lease deadlines, I went, on behalf of bro' who's in the UK, with the forms to the Rating & Valuation (RVD) Dept to have 'em registered and stamped-dutied, for around three hundred bucks each.

    The renewal took some personal time, but that's OK. And many of our tenants are long-timers, upfront and reasonable - making the process a lot easier. Great that a coupla them actually called US a mth or so before old 2-yr leases were up. Hm, guess they might've been trying to avoid bro' raising the rent TOO much in this hair-raising market! not to mention any possibly avoidable admin fees

    Then again, can depend on one's relationship (IF any!) with one's landlord/lady; so if you're relatively fresh to renting in HK, better to stick with using an English-speaking agent as "middle person". Still... in your position as a tenant being asked to pay half a mth's rent for the renewal process... does seem hefty. Negotiate it down before you settle; OR just pay up and be prepared the next time?

  8. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by falang:
    Just because your wife's an agent doesn't mean that the whole profession is worth a grand to do fu*k all. I know for a fact that this agent is doing fu*k all. And I will refuse to pay her a grand to do fu*k all. So, go crap on someone else's thread.

    As I said - the landlord insists - so why write this thread in the first place - go do it your way as you won't take the advice you ask for. Don't waste time asking for advice that you won't and can't take.

    Looks like you going to be moving apartment REAL SOON.

  9. #29

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    Fortuntately, Farang is obviously going to take the useful advice about finding local language expertise. Your trolling is getting a little desperate.