BritGalInTheCity: July 2006

Friday, July 28, 2006

Lowest forms of life

Letting agents

Very much akin to estate agents and in fact some masquerade as such but a real letting agent steeps to new forms of extortion, lying and general bad behaviour - and forms a bond of mistrust with their clients, developed over many years.

Here is a simple guide should you find the need to be one at some point (I will charge a fee for any letting agents wanting to use this in their training program).

1) Always lie wherever possible - especially if telling the truth means having to get off your arse and actually do something for your pay rather than thinking of new ways to screw your customers.

2) Extract as much money as possible from the customer, this means, for example, charging for water and bathroom usage of the tenant when they come to the office to sign the contracts (extra points for adding on a breath tax in air-conditioned offices), as well as charging for contract "creation" (copy and pasting) and "management" (sitting on your arse) of your landlords.

3) Where possible, double charge for things - eg charge a "management fee" of around 6% (in addition to the 11% handling fee) , then add on extra charges for any work that is done as a result of the management fee, eg applying admin charge for extracting tax on the rental income , and checking in and out of tenants (apply separate fees).

4) Try and get short contracts - that way the upfront charges are repeated every year instead of every 2.

5) Throw all files into a black hole immediately after signing - that way you can charge all over again the next year for the same material (and as a bonus: really piss off your landlord clients who have to fill in exactly the same information all over again).

6) Pass requests onto as many colleagues as possible - that way no-one knows who's in change of anything and no-one has direct responsibility for anything. Try and aim for 1 new person a day calling Landlords and continue throughout the tenancy until it gets boring (or you have round-tripped everyone in the office, whichever comes second). Bonus points for getting colleagues from other offices roped in