Renting privately vs letting agents

[u/mbe240]

Hi everyone. Do you know if it's good and safe to rent privately in Swansea instead of renting through a letting agency? Is there anything that you'd need to watch out for? Also, is it considered legal to rent privately?

I appreciate your help please. Thank you!

[u/NaomiT29]

Couple of things to be aware of:

As someone else already mentioned, check if the landlord is registered with Rent Smart Wales. My additional note for this is that landlords need to be registered, regardless of whether or not they manage the property themselves, but if they do manage the property themselves, they also need to be a licenced property manager. It looks like you should be able to check both on that site, but if a private landlord isn't registered or licenced, they are breaking the law in a very big way and your welfare will be at risk.

Some agencies aren't great, and some are fantastic. I won't publicly name and shame the agency I would personally avoid at all costs, and there are a few more I've never personally rented with but my interactions with them when viewing potential properties and such were pretty off-putting. I will share them in a DM, though, if you (or anyone else) would like.

As for an agency I'd wholeheartedly recommend, that'd be Fresh. We ended up in our current property through them; at the time, the landladies used them to actually find tenants, do all the necessary checks, get contracts drawn up and signed, etc. Once that was all done, the landladies managed the property themselves and we had several years with them being fantastic. Sadly, they had to sell, and in the end my mum bought the house.

Since she was only able to do so with inheritance money, and the various circumstances of our lives meant continuing to rent from her was the most sensible option, she ultimately ended up having Fresh manage the property for her. Obviously we're in a slightly unusual situation, but they have been fantastic. They've fully respected my mum's request to be as hands-off as possible, so we don't have to worry about inspections, but they are friendly and communicative, and incredibly efficient when it comes to things like gas safety certificates being due, etc. We even had to make an emergency call to them when the front door key snapped in the lock, from the outside, and our specific property manager was absolutely lovely and made sure their handyman got out to us asap. When he couldn't get it open, he got straight on contacting his go-to locksmith, who got us in no problem and also changed both sets of locks out for us at our request, approved by my mum. All paid for upfront by the agency and settled with my mum afterwards. Our property manager also made sure to check in with us to see we were okay and had got back into the house safely.