A trade body claims that 47 per cent of landlords would cease to use letting agents if their profits began to fall.

Research by the UK Association of Letting Agents, based on a survey of 900 landlords, reveals that 57 per cent of landlords – which UKALA says represents approximately 1.1m – say they employ the services of a letting agent with 36 per cent regular users, and 21 per cent occasional users.

Regionally, landlords in Scotland would be most likely to ditch their agent if their profits were compromised (56 per cent) than anywhere else in the UK. However, just one in three landlords (29 per cent) in the West Midlands would forego their agent – the lowest across the UK. 

The National Landlords Association has already warned that more than 400,000 landlords will be pushed up a tax bracket as a result of the changes to mortgage interest tax relief. 

The findings also show that 26 per cent of landlords who use letting agents to exclusively manage all of their properties would cut them loose in the face of diminishing profits. This drops to a fifth of landlords who use agents on a let-only basis for all their properties.

“As landlords’ costs inevitably rise, agents will need to do more to position themselves as indispensable and make it obvious that they provide solid value for money.  Otherwise, as future tenancies come to an end, landlords will either shop around or start to consider self-managing their properties” warns Richard Price, executive director of UKALA.