Singapore Expats

Hi all

We are currently trying to renew our tenancy agreement on our apartment. The Landlords agent will not deal directly with us when negotiating the new rental rate. So we are having to deal with the original agent who found us the property.

The agent is trying to charge us 1 months fees to essentially send a text message making an offer and telling us yes or no.

To me this sounds completely screwed has anyone else got any experience with this?

Some greedy agents put often a clause into the TA that upon renewal you or the LL need to pay them some money. If you don't have anything like this in your TA why don't you flush both the agents deep into the toilet bowl and deal directly with the LL?

agreed. skip the agent.

brogang wrote:Hi all

We are currently trying to renew our tenancy agreement on our apartment. The Landlords agent will not deal directly with us when negotiating the new rental rate. So we are having to deal with the original agent who found us the property.

The agent is trying to charge us 1 months fees to essentially send a text message making an offer and telling us yes or no.

To me this sounds completely screwed has anyone else got any experience with this?

I had exactly the same problem some time ago.

Upon the expiry of the lease, the agent contacted me and asked if I 'would like to renew'. I did not have the landlord's contact details and had to deal through the agent.

The landlord's agent is often from the same agency as the tenant's agent. They sort of force you into engaging one of their buddies because it's their way of looking out for each other ever since the legislation was introduced to prohibit dual representation (in 2010).

You may be pleased to know however that the agent (either your agent or the landlord's agent) has to provide you with the landlord's contact details upon request as it is your LEGAL RIGHT to be given their contact details, at least their name and address.

If however you can't actually manage to get them to reveal the contact details, short of bringing a lawsuit there is nothing you can do. These agents are just out to make money for doing absolutely F*CK ALL work. You don't need them.

I bet ~100% written TAs have valid clauses requesting written notification/permission from the tenant/LL to address certain issues. How can you do this not having any contact info of the LL? You should never accept TA with no contact info included.
Secondly, if somebody still accepted it and if there was an agent involved in such mess and (s)he did not want to reveal the contact info you should report it to CEA.