Letting agents in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch

On this page

A letting agent finds a tenant for your property, checks them, puts the tenancy on a legal footing and, if you want, collects the rent and looks after the property for as long as the tenant lives there. Flexie Estate Agents does this for landlords in Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and the surrounding coast at three levels: tenant find, rent collection and fully managed. The same group lets 130 properties in Bournemouth, so marketing, referencing and compliance are the team's daily work rather than an occasional job.

Three levels of service

Every level starts the same way: a visit, a rental valuation with the reasons behind it, professional photographs and a listing. What happens after the tenant moves in is what separates them.

Each level has its own fee: a tenant find fee, a rent collection percentage and a management percentage. They are set out on our fees page and confirmed in writing before you instruct us. Property management describes the fully managed service month by month.

The legal checks before a let

A property in England cannot be let until a short list of things is in place, and a tenancy that starts without them is harder to end. We check every item before marketing begins:

• a gas safety certificate (CP12), renewed every 12 months where there is gas;
• an electrical installation condition report (EICR) no more than five years old;
• a smoke alarm on every storey and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a fixed combustion appliance;
• an EPC of band E or better, at the time of writing;
• Right to Rent checks on every adult occupier before the tenancy starts;
• an HMO licence from BCP Council where five or more people in two or more households share, and an additional licence in the parts of Bournemouth where smaller shared houses need one;
• the lease, where the property is a flat, read for any restriction on letting.

The full list is in our landlord legal checklist, and the printable version is on the resources page.

Referencing and the registered tenant list

Every adult who will live at the property is referenced: identity, Right to Rent, credit history, employment or income, and a reference from the previous landlord. Where income does not meet the affordability test we ask for a guarantor and reference them too. You see the report before you accept anyone, and tenant referencing explained shows what the report contains and what a failed reference means for the let.

Before a listing reaches the portals it goes to our registered tenants. These are people who asked us for a home before yours was ready: nurses and doctors on rotation at the Royal Bournemouth and Poole hospitals, academics and staff at Bournemouth University and Arts University Bournemouth, households relocating for a job at the Lansdowne or the airport, and people leaving a Flexiestays apartment at the end of a stay who now want a tenancy. A match from that list means a tenant who is already known to us and ready to move.

Deposits and the Tenant Fees Act

A holding deposit is capped at one week's rent and a tenancy deposit at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, under the Tenant Fees Act 2019. No other charge can be made to a tenant beyond the permitted payments, so the tenant pays no referencing, inventory or renewal fee. The tenancy deposit is protected in a government-approved scheme within 30 days, the prescribed information is served, and a photographed inventory on move-in day is what the check-out is compared with at the end.

The Renters' Rights Act

At the time of writing the first phase of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 has been in force since 1 May 2026. Assured tenancies in England are periodic, with no fixed term; section 21 possession has gone and a landlord needs a legal ground to recover the property; rent can rise once a year by a section 13 notice with two months' notice; no more than one month's rent can be taken in advance; rental bidding is banned; and a tenant can end the tenancy on two months' notice. A landlord database and a landlord ombudsman follow later. Our agreements and notices are written to the current rules, and the Renters' Rights Act for landlords sets out what each change means in practice. This is general information, not legal advice.

Where we let

Our office is at 557 Charminster Road in Bournemouth. We let flats and houses across Bournemouth, from the town centre and the cliffs to Winton, Charminster and Southbourne; across Poole, from Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs to Parkstone and Broadstone; and across Christchurch, Mudeford and Highcliffe. Each town has its own page: letting agents in Bournemouth, letting agents in Poole and letting agents in Christchurch. We also let in Wimborne, Ferndown, Ringwood and the New Forest.

A furnished flat near the beach, a hospital or the BIC has a second route to income: furnished lets of 28 nights or more to contractors, relocations and visiting staff through the Flexiestays platform. Winter lets explains how that works alongside a tenancy.

How to start

1. Get a first figure from the instant rent estimate, then book a free rental valuation.
2. Send the property's details through list your property, or call 01202 619868 between 9am and 5pm on any day.
3. Choose tenant find, rent collection or fully managed once you have the fee in writing.

Our landlords hub collects the guides, the checklist and the comparison of using a letting agent against self-managing, and letting agent fees explained shows how to compare one agent's quote with another's.