LetCompliance vs A high-street letting agent

No. The landlord remains the regulated person under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, the Tenancy Deposit Schemes (TDS) framework, the Right to Rent→ Scheme, the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations and the Housing Act 2004 HMO licensing regime. An agent can perform the work; you stay liable for the breach. This is why audit-logged software is valuable even when you use a full-management agent, if the agent loses a record, the council still fines you.

Three common bands. Tenant-find-only: a single fee of £300–£700 + VAT. Let-only: typically 8–10% of the first year’s rent. Full management: typically 10–15% of the monthly rent ongoing, plus setup (£150–£400), inventory (£120–£250), renewal (£50–£120) and check-out fees. On a £1,500/mo single let, full management at 12% is £2,160/yr before extras.

Yes, many landlords do exactly this. The agent handles tenant-facing work; you keep an independent compliance record so a future agent change does not leave you with no documentation. We import certificates the agent uploads (or that you photograph from their portal) and run the AI expiry detection on top.

For a single let with a stable long-term tenant: closer to 10–20 hours a year of agent value (mostly inspections, certificate scheduling, rent chasing). For an HMO with quarterly inspections, supplier management and tenant turnover: 60–120 hours a year. The maths tilts to "agent" the more friction the property has, and to "self-management with software" the more stable it is.

The Tenant Fees Act→ bans agents from charging tenants most fees (referencing, inventory, check-in). Landlord-facing fees, setup, renewal, full-management percentage, are not regulated and remain at the agent’s discretion. This shifted income models in 2019–2020; expect a 12–15% management band rather than the 8–10% common pre-2019.

It runs the whole let, not just compliance. In one login you advertise, take applications and viewings, reference tenants, e-sign the tenancy, collect rent by Direct Debit and chase arrears, track a 0-100 compliance score, draft Section 8 and Section 13 notices, manage HMO rooms, book done-for-you property services and prepare your SA105 tax. The compliance score is one feature among many, not the whole product.

The table above compares them feature by feature. For most UK landlords and small-to-mid agencies who want the whole tenancy in one place, LetCompliance covers more of the let; A high-street letting agent is the better pick for the specific areas it leads on, which are called out honestly above. LetCompliance is free for your first property, then from £14.99/mo.

LetCompliance ships an SA105-shaped Tax Pack, a Section 24→ personal-vs-limited-company calculator, MTD-dated quarterly summaries, a capital-gains calculator and a mileage log — the landlord tax layer most tools skip. It is not HMRC-recognised for the direct press-submit step, so above the £50,000 MTD threshold you pair it with a recognised filer or hand the pack to your accountant.

They are written by the LetCompliance team, and we say so plainly — but each one names where A high-street letting agent is the better choice and the two things LetCompliance does not do (Open Banking bank-feed reconciliation and HMRC direct-submit filing). Pricing and feature rows are re-verified every quarter.