Once again this has some cross-over into UK law. But without a national landlords, or indeed tenants association, I can't imagine the necessary test-case being brought to bring it into SGn law, at least not any time soon. The 'cross-over' comes simply from consideration of the various principles involved.
For a start, the agent was paid to find you a
property for a fixed period of time, fine, that why you hired them. But if you choose to stay, and both LL and tenant are happy that the rent stays the same, what additional work is the agent they doing that justifies payment?
The agent might argue that you should renegotiate revised rent, via him, and that you have to enter into a new new Tenancy Agreement. If you agree to that then I can see they probably have grounds to charge you a fee. Though you could argue it should be more of a one-off admin fee than an ongoing %age of rent. After all, the agent is not having to take you around various properties, checking yours credentials, negotiating the terms of the TA, and so on, it's simplicity itself for them.
Indeed you
can stay beyond your existing tenancy whereupon it automatically morphs from a fixed term contract in a rolling one. If you pay rent monthly, the then 'Periodic Statutory Tenancy' follows the same terms as the original TA, except that it becomes a rolling monthly contract.
Naturally many agents do not like the idea of PSTs at all, since it denies them the easiest of money; i.e. charging ongoing fees to an established tenant. So you can be sure they won't tell you about how it works. And in the absence of the resources in para.1 above I reckon most tenants perhaps don't know that such a thing exists.
But I can assure you it does. Example. I had one tenant (UK) who rented a place from me via my lovely honest letting agent. After one year he wanted to renew and the agent charged him an admin fee. That also gave me a chance to review/negotiate the rent too, so fair enough. From that point they stopped charging me their 'finders fee' of say 10% of rent charged monthly. That tenancy continued. By about year 3 I'd realised that the tenant was a gem, rent always on time, no trouble at all just the usual typical kind of repair needed now and again. Anyway, long story short, after around 3 years he mentioned he might be leaving but wasn't sure. So we had to consider the duration of his future tenancy, to try and give him flexibility/options. That would have been when I first came across PSTs. And that's what we did, he stayed on his existing (year 3) Tenancy Agreement, and just rolled month-to-month for about a further 7 years! I don't think I reviewed the rent again after that, (though I could have within the PST). If each year rents went up say 5% then his unchanged rent year by year became an increasing reason to stay. Plus his ability to leave pretty much any time he wished also kept him there, he had flexibility he wouldn't get if he moved elsewhere and entered into a new TA.
Now I know what you're thinking, 'ah but that in the UK'
But having a fixed-term TA roll into a PST can happen here just the same, and I've done it.
It was at the last place we rented here. It was on a 2 year contract. It was nearing the end of that term and we already knew that we were leaving in a few months time, but didn't have a date. We were lucky there as our agent was a relative, and the LL was a retired and most charming 'D-10 lady'. So everyone understood and accepted why we wanted to 'go Periodic'. Checking my records I see that in the event, we stayed in that property for 2Yrs2Mos before departing Singapore.That was under the original TA, a new one was not drawn up, as the PST forms automatically. It's possible that a 'For the sake of good order' memo was drawn up, just to lay-out what we were doing, but I don't specifically recall that.
--- Back home you don't pay Stamp Duty of TA's unless the annual rent is circa $10k/mo+. Here you have to pay it on much more mainstream lettings. When you start a TA here the SD is calculated and paid to IRAS. Quite how you pay SD on a PST when you don't know it's duration... hmmm, I don't know (or recall what we did).
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In your quoted case X9, the agent is probably going by the self-serving 'But this is just how it works here' approach. I mean what are they doing that merits payment? If rolled onto a PST they are doing precisely zero. Just because the TA says a tenant has to pay them commission forever doesn't make it legally enforcible.
It would be nice to see a tenant here roll onto a PST (that he's agreed directly with the LL), then to have the agent trying to nail the tenant for renewal fees. As I can't see the agent would have a case. Maybe one day it'll happen.
Some links to X-ref to [again, to consider the principles at play, rather than the specific statutes]:
From the main UK housing/homeless NGO:
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advic ... te_tenancy
'Renewing your private tenancy'.
And, although written in something of a youthful style, this might also be of interest:
http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co ... newal-fee/
'This Is How I Helped My Friend Avoid Paying A Tenancy Renewal Fee'
