Fees and costs
Tenant find or full management: which do I need?
Last updated 4 July 2026 · Reviewed by Nick Thorpe, founder
The short answer
Tenant find suits landlords who live near the property, have time in the working day and know their compliance obligations. Full management suits everyone else. At Livdin the choice is £400 plus VAT once, or 10% of rent plus VAT each month, so the real question is what your time and peace of mind are worth.
Every landlord hits this question sooner or later. Pay once to get a good tenant in, or pay monthly to never think about the property again? Here is the honest version, with our published fees and the maths done for you.
What you get with each service
Tenant find gets the property let. Full management gets it let and then run for you. Everything up to the tenant moving in looks the same on both routes; the difference is who does the work afterwards.
| What is covered | Tenant find | Full management |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | £400 + VAT, once per tenancy | 10% of monthly rent + VAT, ongoing |
| Marketing, viewings and tenant selection | Yes | Yes |
| Referencing with right to rent checks | Yes, £35 + VAT per tenant | Yes, £35 + VAT per tenant |
| Tenancy agreement and DPS deposit registration | Yes, registration £30 + VAT | Yes, registration £30 + VAT |
| Rent collection and arrears chasing | You | Livdin |
| Maintenance and repairs | You | Livdin, at contractor cost with no markup |
| Gas safety, EICR and EPC renewals | You track and book | Livdin tracks and books |
| Tenant calls, day and night | You | Livdin, with a 24/7 owner portal (COHO) |
The itemised setup costs (referencing, inventory, deposit registration) apply on both routes and the whole schedule is published on our fees page. HMO fees differ slightly: tenant find is £300 plus VAT per tenant and management is 12% plus VAT.
The break-even maths
On an average Kirklees rent, full management costs more in cash than tenant find after just over five months. Start there, but it is not the whole story.
The ONS average private rent for Kirklees was £759 a month in March 2026. Management at 10% of that is £75.90 plus VAT a month. Divide the £400 find fee by £75.90 and you get about 5.3 months: the point where the two fees have cost you the same. Our average tenancy runs 24 months, and over that period management adds up to about £1,820 plus VAT against £400 plus VAT for tenant find. The gap is roughly £1,420 over two years, which works out around £59 a month, or just under £14 a week.
Your rent will not be exactly £759, so run your own number: 10% of your monthly rent, times the months you expect the tenancy to last, against £400. Both fees carry VAT, so it cancels out of the comparison.
The honest caveat is that this is not really a break-even at all, because you are buying two different things. The £59 a month is not dead money. It buys everything in the right-hand column of that table: the rent chasing, the repairs, the renewals, the calls. If none of that has value to you, the maths says take tenant find. If your evenings do, keep reading.
When tenant find only is the right answer
Tenant find is the right answer more often than a letting agent is supposed to admit. Take it if most of these are true. You live near the property. You have time in the working day, because that is when tenants and contractors call. You know your compliance obligations and stay on top of renewal dates. You have contractors you trust. And you actually like the hands-on side. Plenty of landlords do, especially with one property close to home. We will find you a good tenant, reference them properly with right to rent checks, set the tenancy up and hand over cleanly. No monthly fee, no hard feelings.
When full management earns its 10%
Full management is the right answer when your time is worth more than the fee. You live an hour or more from the property. You have a demanding job or a business of your own. You own several properties, or an HMO with all the extra moving parts. Or you have simply done your years of tenant calls and want the rent without the phone calls. On our full management service maintenance is charged at contractor cost with no markup, we work to a 7-day void target from checkout to move-in, and our average tenancy runs 24 months, which is where the real money is: a tenant who stays is worth more than any fee saved.
The bit people miss: compliance stays with you
With tenant find, legal responsibility for the tenancy stays with you for its full length. Gas safety, electrical checks, the EPC, deposit protection rules and right to rent are the landlord’s duties in law, and once we hand over, nobody is watching the renewal dates but you. See GOV.UK’s guide to renting out a property for the full list. We can carry out individual jobs from our published schedule at any point, but the diary is yours. Rules change, and they have been changing quickly, so we confirm current requirements on every tenancy we set up or manage.
Still torn? Tell us the property and we will do the maths with you. Start with a rent estimate so the 10% is a real number rather than a guess.