Letting Agent Rent Increase Fee Wales: What Agents Charge and What You Can DIY

What Agents Typically Charge

Specialist letting agents and property management firms in urban centres across Wales — Cardiff, Swansea, Newport — charge between £75 and £150 plus VAT to prepare and serve a single rent increase notice under Section 123 of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016.

That fee generally covers completing Form RHW12, posting it to the contract-holder, and providing the landlord with a copy for their records.

What the Fee Does Not Include

Most agency service agreements explicitly exclude certain things:

• Tribunal representation. If the contract-holder on a converted contract refers the proposed rent to the Rent Assessment Committee using Form RAC4, the agent's standard fee does not cover preparing evidence or attending the hearing.
• Market-rent research. Gathering comparable lettings data to support your proposed figure is usually outside the scope of a one-off notice service.
• Liability for defective notices. Agency terms typically disclaim responsibility if the notice turns out to be procedurally invalid — whether because of an incorrect effective date, a service defect or a missing form part.

Can Landlords Charge the Tenant for This?

No. Under the Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019, any fee charged to a contract-holder for serving a rent increase notice is a prohibited payment. The only permitted payments are rent, security deposit, holding deposit (capped at one week's rent) and specified default payments.

Charging a contract-holder an administrative fee for a Section 123 variation — or for updating the written statement afterwards — is unlawful. A local authority can issue a Fixed Penalty Notice of £1,000 or prosecute, and retaining a prohibited payment blocks you from serving a valid Section 173 no-fault possession notice.

The fee is the landlord's cost alone.

The DIY Alternative

The Section 123 process is procedural, not complex. The main challenge is getting the timing right — the two-month notice period calculated from the deemed service date, and the 12-month interval from the last variation. A self-managing landlord who understands these rules can complete Form RHW12 and serve it correctly without an agent.

The Wales Rent Increase Guide provides the step-by-step process, the date calculation worksheet and the Section 237 service log that a letting agent would use internally — for a fraction of the per-notice agency fee.

See more Wales guides →