By: Nyima Sillah
Officials of the Real Estates Agencies have defended six or one-year down payment always demanding from tenants before they (tenants) can move into any of their choice house, saying it is due to signed contracts with landlords.
Defending the position of estate agents was as a result of different complaints from tenants and would be tenants that are on daily searching for places but continue facing hike charges from the estate agents who have no mercy in their hearts.
Bintou Jatta, secretary general of Everest Realtors told The Voice that: “Landlords always demand for deposit for their safety and the safety of their property, because some tenants will just vacate the house without any notice.”
“So, if they rent house or any property, they can spend some months owing the landlords while they can just leave the house anytime without payment, and most of the time they something in the house but with the deposit, landlords can take good care of their houses,” she explained.
According to her, the rent fee depends on how the landlords want it to be done, saying “some landlords ask for six months others per annum.”
She noted that now most of the landlords do ask for one year plus deposit.
Joseph Nzally, office manager for Taranga Real Estate said they charge extra money for service to scout houses for tenants, adding: “because people have to understand that we are companies so we pay tax, salary and other activities too.”
He said: “The reason why we ask for six months payment or one year is because it makes our work easy and the deposit is for the client, if he is ready to live without no damage, the money is given back to him but when there is damage, we use that money to renovate it for other customers.”
“We demand a percentage from the landlord when the deal is done because managing someone’s property is hard and they deal with all kind of customers, and whenever we have any payment issues with tenants we take responsibility.”
Yaya Tamba, also a manager at the Real Estate accused some tenants of refusing to pay for the houses they helped them moved in for months.
He said: “so the company take responsibilities by paying the money which does not favor their businesses. Most of these agents are single agents that don’t even have office and they charge for extra payment compare to the well established one in the office and sometimes the tenants do not know.”
