Landlord/Agent demanding PPI

[Hlc2109]

Hello!

long story short we have applied for a 2 year tenancy through a letting agent and paid them £330 fees and a £950 holding deposit. They have spent the last two weeks completing references, credit checks and going through 6 months worth of bank statements for all the accounts we hold (three in total)
Today they came back to us and told us that we had a couple of unarranged overdraft fees - I will add these were refunded as they were a banking error and no fault of our own which we explained to the agent. However the landlord is demanding that because of these fees on our bank statements we pay £120 to the agent for PPI and will now only agree to a 12 month tenancy. The best bit is, if we don't pay them the £120 for PPI they will decline the tenancy and only refund half of our holding deposit. We have 7 years perfect rent history so feel this is completely unjustified.

My question is, are they allowed to do this to us? I feel like they have us over a barrel as we really have no choice but to pay it, we cant afford yet another lot of deposit and fees.

Sorry for the long post, any advice on this would be much appreciated.

[jaguarsuk]

Re: Landlord/Agent demanding PPI

I hate Letting and Estate Agents with a passion... I know you didn't ask that, but I do!!

Right, on to what you have asked. When you agreed to take the property off the market they will have asked you to sign something usually, in that document you need to look at the wording of who can be charged what for what reasons.

I recently was looking at a house and mine said that if the landlord withdrew from the agreement that all funds would be repaid. The question of if they are allowed is going to revolve around whether you passed the referencing and who did the referencing.

If it was done by a third party then you want to see their report (your entitled to see it under the Data Protection Act 1998) because usually the wording is along the lines of if you fail the referencing you are liable to pay X, Y & Z. However, if you passed and they have now added this then it's the landlord pulling out; usually fully refundable.

If the referencing is done by the agent then you're pretty much in cowboy country, because they're just going to say that you failed and they can make the deductions. And from the sounds of it I think the agent is probably doing the referencing themselves.

Legally, you're stuck by what you signed and what it entitles them to do.

However, one thing I do know about Letting and Estate Agents is that they're horrendous at paperwork. Get them to send the Tenancy Agreement and PPI sign up form to you. Check the Tenancy Agreement to see if it stipulates that you must have PPI throughout the tenancy. If it doesn't then you sign up for it and return the agreement to them, then as soon as you get the counter signed copy back you simply cancel the PPI within the cooling off period for a full refund.

If the agreement does state you have to have it, pay for it and run the tenancy and then at the end of it make a claim for mis-sold PPI.

No doubt the agent is getting a commission on the sale of the PPI.