Agreed a tenancy - but now can't go through with it?

Cardinal-Red

A friend of mine recently went to look at a property available to rent in Stafford, immediately offered the asking price to the agent and paid the usual £100 non-refundable desposit for the references which all went through OK.

Then they went into the shop and signed the tenancy agreement with the agent with possession to begin on 28th April.

Now however the agent has called them and said that the landlord has not been able to get a consent to let from their mortgage provider and so is unwilling to go through with the tenancy until the arrears are paid off.

The questions are really:

1) The signed tenancy agreement - does this agent, registered with ARLA, have a responsibility to check for a consent to let agreement before signing a contract? I am thinking no, because otherwise how would there be so many "undeclared" landlords...

2) The 'non-returnable' deposit.... surely this must be returned? I understand the non-refunable element if you fail the reference checks, but surely not if the house was never really available in the first place?

bap98189

Yes the deposit has to be returned. The deposit only kept if case your friend defaults for some reason. In this case, it is the landlord who is the cause of the problem and the full amount of the deposit should be returned immediately.