how to get out of landlord contract with estate agent

mohana_2

we are currently renting out our old flat to a wonderful tenant for the last 15 months. We used an estate agency to find the tenant and agreed a fee of 8.5% of the rent as commission. while they found me a good tenant, i am increasingly annoyed by their behaviour and constant schemes to get more money out of me.

i am paying them the equivalent of nearly 1000 pounds a year for a one-off service. after they found the tenant, i had to pay a fee for creating a rental agreement. they then insisted on a professional inventory clark as well. all this was again never mentioned when i hired them. of course my tenant also had to pay a similar sum for a rental agreement. all these add-ons to the fee really irritated me but i thought that was the price for getting a tenant

i put that down to experience. however, after a year with them, they sent me a letter asking me to sign a new contract with the tenant. of course they wanted me to pay them another 60 pounds for drafting a small addition to the existing contract. i had not requested any additions and the addition was a completely frivolous addendum enabling me to apparently serve notice on my tenant on any day, as opposed to the original contract where i could apparently only serve her notice on the day the rent was due (not that this is stated anywhere in the original contract). i basically did not bother replying to them. later when i spoke to my tenant i found out that they had sent her a similar letter and she had paid them 60 quid. they called me and told me that the new contract was for my 'benefit'. but i refused to budge and then the agent told me to sign it anyway and that they would waive the fee. in the end i told them i would not sign it. i informed my tenant and she is now trying to get her 60 quid back from them. initially i had an arrangement with them where i would pay my commission in 6 month chunks. but after i refused to pay this fee , they demanded that i pay my entire years commission in advance in one go.

meanwhile there headoffice is constantly sending me invoices for this amount despite me informing them of my decision. it is basically the last straw now. rightly or wrongly i want to get out of this arrangement. i like my tenant and we would like to continue our agreement.

is there a way of doing this and has anyone had any experience of doing this. my husband felt that if they wanted me to sign a new tenancy contract would that indicate that hte old one was void. can we cancel this agreement and sign a direct tenancy agreement with my tenant. my tenant is also keen on this as they have held a 6 week rent deposit.

i appreciate that i have signed this contract in the first place with full knowledge of their terms. but i am really fed up with their attempts to constantly charge more money through one means or the other. having paid them more than 1000 pounds for the job of finding a tenant for me and various other charges, i dont feel morally responsible for paying them any more fees. however, i am worried about any legal repurcussions.

any suggestions on how i can achieve this.

Debt_Free_Chick

I think there are two things here. Firstly, there is the contract that you have with the letting agent. What does that say about terminating the agreement?

If you terminate the agreement with the letting agent, that shouldn't affect the AST you have with your tenant. It's not true that ASTs need to be renewed. Usually the original AST has a clause explaining what happens when the initial term runs out. Typically, the AST continues to run but either you or the tenant can give notice to quit .... one or two months is the norm. What does the original AST say?

You should be able to terminate your agreement with the agent - subject to what's in the contract - and simply leave the original AST in place with your tenant.

But we need to know what's in the agreement with the letting agent.

HTH

david29dpo

my agent tried this on. after the 6 months term was up they asked if i wished to renew. i said no thanks and it simply changed to a monthly term. no problems.