Lost Holding Fee

anypotter

Hi There

My partner and I are having difficulty with a letting agent who will not return our money.

Last month we found a property we wished to rent, this being our first ever home together. On the day we viewed it the landlady was very honest with us and explained she needed 3 or 4 weeks grace before she moved as she was due to have a baby. This was fine for myself and my partner as we also needed a few weeks to prepare. We visited the letting agents and placed a £250 holding fee. Reference forms were filled in and sent off, mine passed but my partners did not. So we got my father to act as guarantor. He filled in his forms and were accepted.

After not really hearing from the agent for 3 weeks and us constantly making phonecalls to check on the status we were first told the landlady has a couple of pending disputes.....is waiting for a draft contract on her new property....and finally.....the landladies property has fallen through on exchange...she is not moving until the end of October at the earliest.

the letting agent have told us that we cant have our £250 back as we signed to say it was non-refundable and that "our credit checks failed anyway". the words the letting agent used when my partner called to get the last update on the situation was "yes..I've been MEANING to call you". They are resolute that the money cannot be returned as it has been used on references and admin (???) but as it was not our fault that it all went wrong, we feel we have been mislead, offered a property that was not actually available and most importantly, treated very badly by the letting agent (no customer service).

We have been charged £60 each for 3 references and £70 Admin.

The agency has said that it is industry standard that the fees arnt paid back regardless of who is at fault.

We dont want to wait any longer for a flat to move into as things have been bought, prepared, money is tight. But we have secured another property with a different agency, who wont accept our original references understandably.

We have written to the TPO and the company owner but have had no reply as yet. And I am contemplating writing to the local paper to warn against this agency.

I would welcome any suggestions and how to tackle the agency to recover at least some of the money we paid in good faith for absolutely nothing. The original property is now back on the market as "Let Available"

thanks :-)

tbs624

Letting Agents = no training, formal qualifications or specific expertise required , therefore take what they say with a massive pinch of salt. Attempting to effectively rob Ts of their holding deposit may be” industry wide” but that does not make it right.

Even where its the T who decides to withdraw, a LL may only retain a “reasonable” amount from any holding deposit. Third part credit checks costs between 15 and 50 quid per person, but LAs frequently command discounts on those costs.

In this instance, clearly the issue is at their end. The LA/LL arguing that your refs were not have been up to scratch is neither here nor there if they had already accepted a guarantor because of that, and then they themselves couldn’t offer the property within the originally advertised timespan.

What exactly does your holding deposit receipt say - any Ts and Cs cited on there? Any other source of written info?

Do you have written evidence:

(a) that the guarantor was accepted by the LA/LL?

(b) of the original date on which this property would become available to you?



For local support, the Council’s Trading Standards Officer can help with these issues, as can the Private Sector Rentals Officer , also at the Council.

BitterAndTwisted

Letting Agents generally make the rules up as they go along as there's little regulation about how much they can charge or what for.

A lot of tenants hand over a holding deposit so the property isn't advertised any longer and then get charged additional amounts for credit-checking and the LA's admin costs on top.

It sounds to me like the holding deposit has been used for the credit-checks etcetera and I'd be very, very surprised indeed if you could extricate any of that money from the LA's clutches.

tbs624

CAB (adviceguide.org.uk) confirmation:

If you have paid an administration fee and/or a holding deposit and the landlord chooses not to go ahead with the tenancy, the Office of Fair Trading Guidance states that you should receive a refund of all pre-payments. If the agency will not return your payments, you should seek advice.

It is beyond the Ts control if the LL moves the goalposts after confirming that a property will be available in x week/month, and the T coughs up a holding on reliance of that original assertion.

If the OP/potential T has evidence about the original date and can show that the guarantor had been accepted, then the LA cannot simply hold on to all of that holding deposit

anypotter

thanks guys.

we have no written agreement as to when we were due to move in only verbal.

the receipt we have states that the deposit is non refundable whether we decide to pull out or they do....something to those words.

I also have copies of my reference check, my partners and the guarantors.

BitterAndTwisted

Well, at least you might be able to give the next letting agent your copies of the reference checks so perhaps avoid paying for those again.

Alias_Omega

How did you pay, if it was card, it could be a chargeback etc..

anypotter

we paid cash as they wouldnt accept anything else.

the new letting agency/landlady cant accept our old references because they can only get thier insurance through thier own one.