Help Please! I think my letting agent is breaking the law??

lukevilla86

Hi, Can anyone please help me?

I made a written request to my letting agent for them to supply me with my Landlords name and address.

I read online that the 'Lanlords and Tenant Act 1985' says they must provide me with this within 21 days.

They are refusing to provide me with the information however, can someone please confirm that they are infact in breach of the act??

If they are, and it applies to me, who do I report them to??

Many Thanks,

Luke

tbs624

LL and T Act 1985

S1 Disclosure of landlord’s identity

(1)If the tenant of premises occupied as a dwelling makes a written request for the landlord’s name and address to—

(a)any person who demands, or the last person who received, rent payable under the tenancy, or
(b)any other person for the time being acting as agent for the landlord, in relation to the tenancy,
that person shall supply the tenant with a written statement of the landlord’s name and address within the period of 21 days beginning with the day on which he receives the request.

(2)A person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with subsection (1) commits a summary offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.

(3)In this section and section 2—

(a)“tenant” includes a statutory tenant; and
(b)“landlord” means the immediate landlord.

My highlighting "summary" = criminal .

Send the LA a further letter recorded delivery, saying that you are once again requesting this information, despite their previous failure to respond to your previous request as required by law, quoting the above and tell them that you are copying the letter to the Private Sector Rentals Officer at the local Council. Talk to the PSRO and/or ring Shelter 0808 800 4444 or Community Legal Services for advice.

If the LA is signed up to ARLA, NAEA, RICS, NALs etc ( look on office windows, letterheads) then google their respective codes of conduct and make a formal complaint there too.

adg1

Why do you so desperately need to know?

Is your contract coming to an end and you want to negotiate directly with the landlord and bypass the agent? They may be due a nice renewal fee from the landlord if you stay on for another 6 months via their agency. It might be that they aren't quite up to speed on the act (quite possible I'm sorry to say) and are simply trying to protect their interests.

I'm sure a legal brain will be along to interpret the Act very soon...

N79

Nothing to add to TBS's post but for interest I thought I should ask the following.

Just to be absolutely clear, are they refusing to give you any information or have you deemed the information that they have provided to be inadequate?

N79

adg1 wrote: »

Why do you so desperately need to know?

Is your contract coming to an end and you want to negotiate directly with the landlord and bypass the agent? They may be due a nice renewal fee from the landlord if you stay on for another 6 months.

I'm not 100% on this, but if the agent is managing the property on the landlords behalf then it is at the landlords request that all contact is through the agent so maybe thats all they need to offer? For instance if the landlord is in a foreign country and the agent is acting as his forwarding address? Clutching at straws here I'm afraid!

I'm sure a legal brain will be along to interpret the Act very soon...

A T does not need a reason to get this information. That is why the act makes it a criminal offence for an agent to allow a LL to hide in this way.

No - an agent's address is insufficient to meet the Act's requirements (unless the LL also works at the letting agent). However, there is no requirement for the LL's home address to be divulged.

tbs624

All Ts should make a point of getting an address for their LL, whilst they are still a T, not least because the LL is ultimately responsible for the return of the tenancy deposit - see here for what can happen with an LA.

SouthCoast

A £4 search at the Land Registry should give you the property owners name and address.

lukevilla86

Thanks for all your help.

They are refusing to give me any information. They say they can't for data protection reasons.

They won't want to give me the information as they know I'm going to be writing a long list of complaints to the LL regarding the letting agent.

Thanks again, I will send them one further warning. How much time shall I give them to respond?

Gwhiz

lukevilla86 wrote: »

Thanks for all your help.

They are refusing to give me any information. They say they can't for data protection reasons.

They won't want to give me the information as they know I'm going to be writing a long list of complaints to the LL regarding the letting agent.

Thanks again, I will send them one further warning. How much time shall I give them to respond?

Give them a 21 day ultimatum and let them know you will be reporting them if you do not get the information in that timeframe.

tbs624

3 working days. Data Protection, my **se.

Unqualified, untrained, unregulated, lacking in basic knowledge of LL& T law........

N79

What a joke of a letting agent! Give them at most a couple of days.