I’m one of those money-grabbing vultures responsible for inflated house prices and preventing first-time buyers getting on the housing ladder. Yes, I confess, I'm a buy-to-let landlord.

Actually, I’m what is known as an "accidental landlord", forced into Buy-to-Let when I had to act fast on a flat I wanted to buy. Selling my current property would have meant being in a chain so I thought why not keep it and rent it out?

Sounds good in theory but the downside of being a landlord is, of course, dealing with tenants.

First, you’ve got to find them, check they’re suitable people to move into your lovely flat, then make sure they don’t do an overnight flit with your sofa and carpets, leaving a trail of unpaid bills in their wake.

Letting agents would have you believe that they are the solution to the above problems, but I beg to differ. Initially, I toyed with the idea of using a letting agent and checked out what they charged.

The answer was: a lot.

On closer inspection, it seems they invent a whole random raft of charges which defy the laws of economics. Introducing a tenant costs around 10% of the annual rent, so assuming a monthly rent of £700, just an introduction would set me back £840. The fee is normally taken up front or out of the first two months’ rent – and there’s no refund if the tenant legs it or doesn’t pay the rent.

The introduction fee is just the beginning. After that, there’s the tenant referencing fees, credit checks, a fee to draw up a tenancy agreement, a fee for “full management” of the property, inventory fees, checking-out fees...the list goes on.

I think letting agents simply make up these charges as they go along, hoping that naive first-time landlords will think they have no choice but to pay up.

Some letting agents charge £150 to credit check tenants when the same checks can be carried out online for about £20. Tenancy agreements cost around £100 when it’s simply a matter of photocopying or downloading an existing agreement and adding in the relevant name and address details.

One of the most preposterous fees is the renewal commission fee which enables letting agents to charge landlords ongoing commission, even if it doesn't  need to find them a new tenant.

One estate agent chain found themselves in court last year over the term in its contracts which allowed the letting agent to ask landlords to pay substantial commission after the initial fixed period of tenancy had expired, even if it had no part in persuading the tenant to stay and no longer managed the property.

The contracts also stated that even after a landlord had sold a property, they could still be liable to pay the agent if the sale was to the tenant, whether or not the agent had played any part in negotiating the sale. The estate agent lost the case, which was brought by the Office of Fair Trading, after these clauses were deemed unfair by the judge.

But if the charges levied on landlords weren’t bad enough, some letting agents hit tenants with a similar load of, often duplicate, charges.

Tenants looking for a property through an estate agent often have to pay an “admin” fee of anything from £75 to £200. Then there’s an "inventory fee", "cleaning fees" and "checking out fees", and all this is on top of the standard one-month’s rent as a deposit.

I’m on my second tenant now.

The first was the tenant from hell and the second is a tenant sent from heaven. My first tenant repeatedly failed to pay the rent on time and as a ‘DIY landlord,’ I constantly chase her for the rent until she’s paid up.

A letting agent, on the other hand, would have charged me £20 to write to her after each bounced standing order - and then not until the rent was two weeks late. What use is that?

My current tenant is great; she pays the rent on time and looks after the flat. If I paid a letting agent an ongoing fee to manage the letting, I’d be paying them for nothing.

So, are letting agents ever worth employing? I’m sure there are some good ones out there but I’ve yet to come across any that don’t charge ridiculous random fees that bear no relation to the actual costs involved. But if you’re a letting agent who wants to defend your trade, I’d be interested in hearing your views.