Issues with Letting Agents / Rent etc

[fredbestboy]

Hi

Not sure I am in the right place and sorry for long mail but need to give an idea of what has gone on with my rental properly! Here goes. In November 2014 I hired a small long establish local letting agent to manage my property - paying him around $£177.00 per month inc VAT to do so. I did this due to work pressures wanted a full managed service for a while.

In any event at the end of 2016 I wanted to sell the property and gave the tenant three months to vacate the propery ie Jan-March 2107.

The tenant left on 13th March and paid the pro-rated rent from 24th Feb to 13th March te the agent on that day. I didn't care about the full months rent and was glad to be able to get the place ready for sale. in any event the place was a mess. The carpets had been replaced and then messed (by the tenant). So I paid for new carpets to be fitted and funnily enough the Agency kept the £800.00 of rent collected to cover the decoration (he did actually have a Polish gentlemen who works for him do the work for me and he was for good - so fine with this). To be honest I was not put out by paying this as the flat had not been decorated/carpets (replaced by me) since 2012 and I think his is just part of the costs Landlords have to absorb.

Apart from this:

My immaculate (expensive) 3 seat sofa bed - gone - piece of tatty stained rubbish put in place

burns on dining table

large wooden frame dressing table mirror - missing

hover missing

dressing table broken and draw missing

stained bed

hole in kitchen cupboard board

everything is filthy dirty

overfilled with tenats dumped propery

etc etc - you get the picture. So I now hold the deposit of £2400.00 less the £800.00 and I tell agent that the tenant, who by now is "missing" that they are not getting this back - although the £1600.00 in no way covers the cleaning costs I had to cover or replacing items damaged / stolen.

Moving on I had paid the agent in June 2016 for a new shower pump. It transpires from conversation with a neighbour that the original pump started to get noises sometime last year, this was fixed but noise started up again. So the Agent contact me in June to ask me to pay for a replacement and he said his plumber/odd job would fix for minimal fee - total £500.00. Since then there has been an on going noise issue with the pump, going off at all times so I get my own plumbers in they confirm pump is broken. I then had ask the agency for the receipt, get the pump number to contact the makers for a replacement - they have told me the pumps are guaranteed for 5 years - so will replace. However I will of course have to pay to get the pump fixed properly. I have no idea why the Agent did not think to do this too! He did tell me at one point that he did not charge for all the visits to try and fix the pump!

Next item - I start opening bills to get them transferred to me. Open the bills from NPower still addressed to the previous tenant and NOT the one that has recently vacated the property. To find that NPower have fitted a gas metre and now want to fix a elect meter because there is a couple of grand in outstanding gas/elec. When I phone the agent, he says yes I found out and tried to get key for the Gas meter - never tells me. Next step I have to phone/email NPower, and they ask me to get a copy of the Council Tax / Signed Tenancy agreement (which was, by the way, signed by the Agent on my behalf with new tenant). I got this and have now emailed to NPpower to get things resolved, along with letters which the agent said they sent to Npower changing the names of the tenant.

I have also found out loads of things that the Agent never told me, such as the Tenant left a frying pan on the hob and the whole block was smoked out! Men hanging around and dropping rubbish in the hall way etc,, Park it there and I will leave the rest to your imagination.

As a landlord over the years I have learnt that you can be the best landlord you can but no tenants behaviour will ever surprise you and at some point all and every issue will come up. However, this is the first time I have ever taken my finger of the pulse - and everything has gone haywire - tell you what never again!

Further, I feelas if the Agent has behaved dreadfully and the final straw for me, is that when I was doing a detailed check of my bank statements for some other payments, I noticed that the rent payment for 24th Jan-23rd February was not credited to my bank account. I then checked back to November 2014 when the agent took over and ALL other payments, had been made up to then and the payment for 24th Dec - 23rd Jan had hit my account on 5th Jan 2017. Now often the rent would go in around end of month or 1st or 2nd of next month and I was fine with this but missing rent is a whole new ball game I am not prepared to accept.

Thus whilst asking him to send the receipt for the pump by email. I asked him to pay in the missing rent that day (Monday 24th July) or prove by 28th July that the rent had gone in previously so I could contact my bank to trace the money. He came back provided the receipt for the Pump and said he would look into the rent. I followed up on Friday 28th asking again that he confirm when payment could be expected or give me the proof my bank that day - nothing.

So now I am wondering if the tenant did not actually pay the penultimate months rent and the Agent "forgot" to tell me this in the hope I would not notice or if the tenant paid the rent but the Agent just did not make payment. As far as I am concerned the Agent is now liable to pay the rent because as at no point, did he or anyone at his Agency ever warn me that the rent had not been paid for this period I am also suspicious that he may have been charging the Tenant a higher rent than I was receiving.

So can someone please help me understand my legal position? I can ask my solicitors to prepared docs for small claim court if he does not want to pay up but would prefer to avoid this. I have kept things sweet so far and I may have been dumb in trusting him not I am prepared to let the rent remain unpaid. Any thoughts, suggestions ideas of way forward would be much appreciated.

[Diana M]

Re: Issues with Letting Agents / Rent etc

All lettings agents are obliged by law to belong to a third party redress scheme.

Make a Formal Complaint to the agent and then if it's not resolved you can refer it to one of the three schemes which are free to use.

General info > https://england.shelter.org.uk/housi...edress_schemes

The Property Ombudsman > https://www.tpos.co.uk/consumers/how...ke-a-complaint

Ombudsman Services - Property > https://www.ombudsman-services.org/s...s-we-deal-with

Property Redress Scheme > http://www.theprs.co.uk/Consumer

If your property was 'managed' by the agency there would be a higher expectation of service levels compared with a Tenant Find or Rent Collection only service.

I would go down the redress scheme route first since that would be cheaper than instructing a solicitor to issue court proceedings.

The Ombudsman can order the letting agent to pay compensation if appropriate.

Good Luck !

Di

[fredbestboy]

Re: Issues with Letting Agents / Rent etc

Thank you - I am glad there is an alternative. Let us see where I get too!