Ask most first-time landlords what worries them most about handing a property to a
management company, and it’s rarely the guests. It’s the fear of not really knowing
where the money is going — a management fee that seemed reasonable at the outset,
followed by charges that only appear once you’re locked in. For landlords with no prior
experience of professional management, that fear is entirely reasonable. No hidden
fees and full visibility of income and expenditure isn’t a nice-to-have at EzeeBnB — it’s
non-negotiable.
The Problem Is Real, and It’s Well Documented
It’s worth being honest about why this concern exists in the first place: hidden costs in
property management aren’t a myth landlords have invented, they’re a well
documented issue across the wider industry.
Contractor mark-ups are one of the most common hidden costs. Independent
analysis of the letting and management sector has repeatedly flagged the practice of
agents adding a mark-up — sometimes referred to as a “contractor uplift” — onto
maintenance and repair invoices before passing them on to the landlord, on top of the
management fee already being charged. One industry figure has been blunt about the
impact of this: transparent management isn’t just about good and honest practice, it
directly affects a landlord’s bottom line.
Regulators have had to step in because of it. This isn’t a fringe concern — it’s serious
enough that UK consumer law addresses it directly. Under the Consumer Rights Act
2015, letting and property management agents in England and Wales are legally
required to publicise the fees relating to their service. Separately, The Property
Ombudsman’s own Lettings Code of Practice is explicit that there must be complete
transparency when it comes to fees, and specifically advises landlords to ask agents for
a full breakdown of contractor costs, including any commission arrangement —
precisely because this is where hidden costs most often creep in.
That last point matters here in particular. As we’ve covered elsewhere, EzeeBnB is
registered with The Property Ombudsman, which means the fee transparency standard
set out in their Code of Practice isn’t just something we agree with in principle — it’s a
standard we’re formally held to.
What Transparency Actually Looks Like With EzeeBnB
No fees that only appear after you’ve signed. The management fee you agree to at the
outset is the management fee you pay. If a contractor is needed for maintenance or
repair work, you see the actual cost — not a marked-up figure designed to generate
extra margin on top of the management fee you’re already paying.
Full visibility of income and expenditure, not a black box. You should be able to see
exactly what your property has earned and exactly what’s been spent, clearly broken
down, rather than receiving a single net figure and having to take it on trust. That
visibility matters most for owners who are new to professional management and have
no prior benchmark for what “normal” looks like — which is exactly why we treat it as
essential rather than optional.
Straightforward answers when you ask questions. If you want to understand why a
figure looks the way it does — a cleaning charge, a maintenance cost, a platform fee —
you should get a clear, direct answer, not a vague explanation designed to close the
conversation down.
Why This Matters Most for First-Time Owners
Experienced portfolio landlords often know exactly what questions to ask and what red
flags to look for, because they’ve seen poor practice before. First-time owners rarely
have that benchmark — which is precisely why they’re more vulnerable to hidden costs,
and precisely why transparency matters most for them. If you’ve never worked with a
management company before, you shouldn’t need insider knowledge of the industry’s
bad habits just to be confident you’re being treated fairly. That confidence should be
built into how a management company operates from day one, not something you have
to fight to extract.
The Bottom Line
Transparency isn’t a marketing line — it’s a genuinely load-bearing part of the trust
between an owner and a management company. Given how well documented the
alternative is across this industry, we don’t think landlords should have to simply hope
their management company is being straight with them. It’s something you should be
able to see for yourself, in the numbers, every time.
If you’d like to see exactly how EzeeBnB structures fees and reports income and
expenditure before you commit to anything, get in touch. We’re happy to walk you
through it in full, with nothing held back.