What is the commission when renting an apartment? Features of payment, settlements and guarantees

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Anyone who wants to rent housing with certain guarantees will apply to a special agency. A re altor always acts as a conductor in real estate transactions. Naturally, his services are not free. Let's try to figure out what a commission is when renting an apartment, how it is paid and what it guarantees.

Basic concepts

What is the commission when renting an apartment? This is the usual remuneration for services rendered by an intermediary, that is, a re altor. They usually include:

• selection of options according to the voiced requirements of the tenant;
• presentation of selected objects, most often on site;
• negotiations with the property owner (or his legal representative);
• concluding an agreement with the direct participation of the employer.

Plus, a re altor will always help you evaluate the merits and point out the shortcomings for each of the options, tell you how to check the serviceabilitytechnical equipment. And the main reason to pay a re altor is the huge amount of time and money saved, which is usually wasted when searching on your own.

We will distinguish

From the above, it becomes clear what a commission is when renting an apartment. This is the amount paid once when renting a property. It is important not to confuse it with the monthly rental fee. There are two types of this reward:

1. When renting real estate. In this case, the lump-sum amount is paid by the client receiving the right of residence.
2. When renting real estate. Here the commission is paid by the owner of the premises.

In both the first and second cases, the amount includes the drafting and signing of bilateral agreements.

What is the difference between bail

This concept also confuses people who are ignorant of the intricacies of civil law transactions. Therefore, it should be noted that the deposit and commission when renting an apartment are completely different concepts. If the first is a remuneration to the re altor for his work, then the deposit is a sum of money determined by the owner, which guarantees the order and safety of the property in the rented premises. There are many variations of collateral. For example, the owner requires payment for the first month of using the property and for the last month before moving in. That is, a pledge is a kind of insurance provided only to the owner. Transaction intermediaries have nothing to do with the security deposit.

Who pays

For a long timeestablished unshakable tradition, the commission for services rendered by a re altor is paid by the tenant of the property. This fee is informally referred to as "reduced" (that's what the 50 commission means when renting an apartment). This rule works for premises of a low price category and partially average in the secondary real estate market.

For luxury real estate with a priori rather high rent, all commission payments (called "increased") are charged to the owner of the premises. Because most of the time it's about business. That is, not only premium-class housing in new buildings is rented out, but also corporations, factories, enterprises (subjects for doing business).

In the rarest cases, by prior agreement, the remuneration is shared equally by both parties to the transaction.

Issue price

What does the commission for renting an apartment mean, we have decided. What is its size? According to the unspoken rule, the remuneration depends on the assigned rent and the type of transaction concluded. Less commonly, it includes amounts for the participation of an agency partner. Cases of increasing the amount of remuneration for particularly liquid options for selected real estate have become more frequent.

Therefore, the commission may vary between 50-100% of the amount.

Sometimes re altors give discounts. For example, if the client agreed to the first proposed option. To the question of how to calculate the commission when renting an apartment, no agency will give a sensible answer. It has too many components and, most importantly, personalinterest of the re altor.

Payout rules

Usually they are written in the agreement between the re altor and the client. The procedure for receiving remuneration by the agency is established. Direct payment must occur after signing the agreement and handing over the keys to the premises.

There is no installment plan for paying a commission when renting an apartment (see above for what it is). It is made clearly on time and in full.

Here I would like to note that agencies with a solid reputation and a lot of positive feedback will never require payment of remuneration before signing the contract. If this situation suddenly arises, then most likely these are scammers.

Required documents

To confirm the seriousness of their intentions, the owner of the premises must provide:

• identity document;
• consent of all registered residents (if any), in writing in a specific form and notarized;
• certificate from the management company/zhek about all those registered at this address or a certified extract from the house book;
• rental agreement (if the premises are not privatized);
• certificate of ownership/gift or sale agreement.

Based on the submitted documents, a lease agreement is drawn up, after signing which the client's commission is paid when renting an apartment (see above for what it is).

Signing the contract

First thing to note, the agreement should be called a contractlease, in any case not a lease agreement. In accordance with Russian law, only a lease agreement gives the tenant the right to use the rented premises.

Trilateral signing of the contract automatically recognizes the transaction as legal. That is, it is signed by three persons: the tenant, the owner of the premises and the re altor. In addition, this agreement contains all the necessary information about the parties to sign it, as well as the terms and other conditions.

Main points

A properly drafted document should include:

• full description and title of the deal;
• data of the passports of each of the signatories;
• payment amount and payment procedure;
• characteristics of the premises to be rented: address, area, etc.;
• rights and responsibilities of each party;
• utility payment terms;
• circumstances of contract termination.

According to the agreement of the participants of the concluded agreement, any necessary items can be added to it. For example:

• requirement for unchanged monthly rent payments;
• inventory of property;
• responsibility of the parties for the damage caused;
• pen alties;
• grounds and rules for settlement of probable damage;
• possibility for pets to stay in rented premises;
• prohibition on the transfer of real estate to third parties;
• dispute resolution, etc.

The Agreement comes into force from the moment of itstripartite signature. And only after that, according to the rules, a commission must be paid to the agent when renting an apartment.

If the agreement is less than a year old, then you do not need to register it. And if the end date of the contract is not specified, it is automatically considered valid for five years.

What a re altor is responsible for

What is the commission when renting an apartment, figured it out. And a person who knows his work and bears responsibility for it is not sorry to pay it. Therefore, when contacting an intermediary, you need to know what he is responsible for.

First of all, it is a selection of options according to the parameters specified by the client and drawing up an agreement. Additionally, the re altor may offer to sign an auxiliary contract for the selection of premises that meet the optimal requirements. This document gives the tenant the right, in case of any discrepancies or malfunctions, to contact the agent working with him and demand to select another option. Moreover, this service is no longer paid.

As a result, the payment of a commission to an agent when renting an apartment (which means, see above) ensures the legality of the transaction.

Trying to save money

In today's economic conditions, many do not want to overpay, that is, they do not want to pay for the work of a re altor. But in this case, you need not only to find, download and correctly fill out the form for hiring premises. There are a lot of small nuances that an ignorant person simply cannot know about, in addition, there are many scammers in this area.

Most often, the so-called owner assures the tenant of his rights to the property. Later, for example, it may turn out that this is just an unscrupulous relative who does not even have a banal consent to the rented premises. It happens even worse. A prepayment, a commission for renting an apartment (which means, see above) and a deposit have already been made for the rented premises, but it is not possible to move in: the housing is already occupied. And the examples given are not the worst that can happen.

The document itself is also difficult to compile on your own. This is a rather scrupulous procedure: in addition to the main points in the agreement, you need to specify in detail the rights and obligations of the parties, the payment procedure, etc. Moreover, any ambiguity can give an unscrupulous participant in the transaction being made the opportunity to change the meaning of what is written and interpret it in their own way.

Although there are pluses in refusing the services of a re altor. Agency commission when renting an apartment without the involvement of third parties, that is, directly: owner - tenant, will not exceed 60%.

Be careful

Any agreement you enter into with an agency should be carefully reviewed before signing. For example, it may happen that the owner turns out to be a figurehead or the organization itself is engaged in dishonest transactions. With this development of events, the paid commission in case of sudden termination of the contract will not be returned. But in case of unforeseen circumstances, it can be demanded for return (if necessary, even through the court).

Pay attention to the section "Type of ownership" in the relevant document. The best option for a tenant would be to write "property". Legally, this means only one thing: the property is not divided into shares and it has one owner. If the situation is different, then there is a possibility of litigation and other troubles from the other owners of the premises. For insurance, you can require the re altor to draw up and sign an agreement with all participants in the equity section.

Another interesting nuance is the hidden commission. Clever agents imperceptibly for the client include their remuneration in the cost of the transaction. For example, a remuneration to a re altor is “quietly” added to the established amount of the deposit (in this case, no one is embarrassed, 100% is added). As a result, “everyone is happy”: the owner received a deposit, the agency received its interest, and the employer paid everything.

In a situation where the agent prefers to receive money for his work from both sides and the employer agrees, two contracts should be drawn up. The first is about renting a room (with the signatures of the landlord and owner), the second is between the agency and the person renting the property. The latter, at the request of the company's specialists, can be called a search agreement, on the provision of services, etc. But its essence will be the same - to provide services for the selection of real estate options, according to the specified parameters, in order to conclude an employment agreement. All these subtleties should be written in the documents.

Special attention should be paid to the point about the moment when the service will be recognizedcompleted. Since the tenant expects that the completion of the transaction (the end result) is the signing of the lease agreement, it is in his interests to state in the document that the agency's services are recognized as rendered from the moment the lease agreement is signed with the direct owner of the premises. Otherwise, the employer may find himself between heaven and earth: the obligation to pay a fee for the services of a re altor has already come, and the contract has not yet been concluded, there is not even a guarantee that it will be at all.

It is equally important to indicate in the concluded contract the case of its early termination for reasons beyond the control of the tenant. In this case, the agency is obliged to guarantee and without making additional payments to provide a second service and find a suitable option.

Post scriptum

Agencies with a good reputation and solid experience draw up documents and pay remuneration in accordance with all norms of Russian legislation, which guarantees the integrity of the transaction. Therefore, the main rule of the tenant is to never pay in advance!