THE government’s crackdown on letting agency fees is worse than anything that happened in Stalin’s Russia, letting agents agree.

Today’s budget which stops agents charging £320 for forwarding emails, £280 for phone-answering and £515 for answering a single question truthfully is rabid anti-capitalism which will destroy freedom.

Letting agent Susan Traherne said: “I thought this government was meant to be business-friendly.

“Instead I find my perfectly reasonable fees, such as the £675 non-refundable Retinal Distress Deposit I add if I don’t like a tenant’s face, outlawed because Philip Hammond hates the free market.

“Every pair of hands that tore down the Berlin Wall did it because they dreamed of a future when middlemen were free to set whatever price they thought they could get away with.

“Instead this and restrictions on buy-to-let landlords. It’s like they don’t want people to be earning huge stacks of cash for doing absolutely jack shit.”

Traherne added: “They leave me no choice but to install pay-per-view webcams in all my properties’ bedrooms and showers. Unless they’ve made blackmail ‘against the law’ now.”

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