Housing charity Threshold has done a u-turn on claims that landlords are charging potential tenants fees to view a property.

The comments hit the headlines last week, with the Labour Party drafting legislation to ban the practice.

But the charity has since clarified the comments.

It said it was referring to tenants being asked to bring cash for a booking deposit, and not a viewing fee.

A number of tweets sent from the @ThresholdIRE account - calling for laws to be introduced to ban viewing fees - have been deleted.

"Landlords & letting agencies are now asking for fees like non-refundable deposits or viewing fees", one tweet claimed.

Responding to this, Labour Party housing spokesperson Jan O'Sullivan said landlords and letting agents were "taking advantage of people who find themselves at the centre of the precarious housing crisis."

"There are already many barriers and stresses for renters, we don't need this kind of carry on to become a trend," she said.

'Viewing fee' vs 'booking fee'

Threshold gave a media briefing on Thursday October 11th during which - it said - the terms 'viewing fee' and 'booking fee' emerged.

Threshold said it referred to recent cases it dealt with - where prospective tenants were being asked to bring money to viewings.

It said: "In some cases, prospective tenants understood that unless they had set amounts of money available and upfront, they could not secure the rented accommodation."

The charity has clarified that it "incorrectly characterised this upfront monetary requirement as a 'viewing fee'".

Threshold has apologised for the lack of clarity and any public mis-information around the concept of a 'viewing fee'.

The Threshold CEO is John Mark McCafferty: "A number of our clients talk about 'viewing fees' and it's one of the many barriers that our clients face in trying to access accommodation.

"What our files and our data show that the main barrier to accommodation really is deposits - booking deposits."

"The term 'viewing fees' has been used by our tenants and we're looking into that.

"What our evidence shows is that booking deposits - both refundable booking deposits and non-refundable booking deposits - exists.

"Booking deposits are common but they do pose a big barrier for lower income people who are trying to access accommodation."