Appearing on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 at 7.50 on Saturday morning, David said:
These costs need to be recovered and therefore, whilst this policy may sound great, really, all that is going to happen is the agents will have to pass the costs on to landlords, who will pass them on to tenants and we’re already seeing that.”
I think this goes back to the point that this is market economics. The agent’s costs can no longer be passed to the tenant, so they will be passed to the landlord. At which point they will be passed back to the tenant. And our research indicates that if you have been living in your property for less than two and half years you may see a saving as a result of this ban. But, that’s generally students, younger wealthier millennials and low income families, particularly young families that want to put down roots and in their community for a longer period of time. If this is under two and half years, those people are the ones who are going to end up paying more as a result of this. All that’s happening is the pie is being sliced slightly differently, the costs aren’t going away.
On the BBC News channel at 10am, David was in the studio with news anchor Shaun Ley and reiterated the points that independent research does not support the argument that a Tenant Fee ban will reduce costs for tenant.
At a number of points during the morning, sound clips of David Cox were played during the Graham Norton show on BBC Radio 2, reaching an audience of several million listeners.
At 12 noon, he appeared on BBC Radio 4 again on MoneyBox, with host Paul Lewis launching the interview with the question, “So David, your members are just exploiting tenants aren’t they?”
In the run up to Saturday, David appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Wake up to Money stressing the point that Government should have been focusing on rogue agents rather than piecemeal legislation:
Tenant Fees are legitimate costs, they are legitimate work that agents have to do to keep tenancies well managed throughout the term, whilst this sounds great, it’s probably not going to be, agents will pass this to landlords, landlords will pass them back to tenants through increased rent. Whilst they may see lower upfront costs, it’s really a question of cutting the pie differently rather than actually taking out costs that tenants are going to have to pay.
Later in the day, he went on to make appearances on BBC Radio WM and BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat.
Media appearances were reflected in digital coverage by This is money, Which? Mortgage Strategy, Mortgage Introducer and Landlord News.
