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Letting agents ripping my son off
Comments
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Go to the papers, he can do a "forlorn look" photo opportunity outside the agent's office.0
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Your son has fulfilled his side of the deal and the LA/LL has not kept to theirs. If the LA is out of pocket then they should look to the LL.
Firm letter requesting return of money in full - they can type the word non refundable as many times as they like ... a claim via the small claims court.
I'd second this. To my mind the "non refundable" clause is clearly an unfair term and condition when the LA can no longer supply a property and I cannot imagine any magistrate siding with the LA. The LL pulling out is the LA's problem, not your son's.
A short but sweet "Letter Before Action" giving 7 days and then if needed following through with Money Claim Online should do the trick.Every generation blames the one before...
Mike + The Mechanics - The Living Years0 -
I had something like this a few years ago i just stood in the doorway of the agents and insisted on my refund in cash,i managed to prevent other customers entering the shop.They soon went to the bank and got MY money.0
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estelle123 wrote: »I had something like this a few years ago i just stood in the doorway of the agents and insisted on my refund in cash,i managed to prevent other customers entering the shop.They soon went to the bank and got MY money.
I would stand outside with a big placard!! thieving gits!Willow: I knew it, I knew it, well not in the sense of having the slightest idea, but I knew there was something I didn't know!0 -
Avoid LAs who ask for holding deposits..
That's rather harsh, on both LLs and LAs who take holding deposits.
A holding deposit is needed to take the property off the market & to start referencing.
Otherwise, the LL or LA would end up paying lots of referencing fees for potential tenants who had no financial obligation or any contract to then take on the property.
However, a holding deposit should be accompanied by a holding deposit contract. Mine, & indeed most, state that the deposit is held pending referencing. Furthermore, should the tenants then back out, the deposit is kept to cover the referencing & costs incurred in taking the place off the market. If the landlord pulls out, these should be returned in full. Which is clearly the case here.
Are the LA a member of any EA body, such as ARLA or NAEA?
As others have suggested, your son should go there in person & refuse to leave until he gets his money back. And then take it up with the NAEA or ARLA if the agents are members.
And next time, look for another agent who is a member, & not pay a holding deposit without a contract stating what it can & can't be used for.0 -
Avoid LAs who ask for holding deposits..
Oh TBS - get of your high horse and stop talking such rot. Without holding deposits rents will rise as the costs of letting a property rise to deal with the time wasters (of which there are many).
What matters is not the fact that a holding deposit is taken but the fact that conditions associated with that deposit are clear.
Like Sooz, I take a holding deposit. In my case it is equal to 1 months rent. This removes the property from the market and means that I stop dealing with any other potential Ts.
The holding deposit is returned if I decide not to proceed (never happened yet - one advantage of doing my own referencing is that I can decide whether the Ts meet the referencing criteria within minutes of receiving their application form and before cashing the holding deposit) and in this case I would also return the referencing costs.
The T loses the holding deposit if they decide not to proceed (or if it turns out they lied during their application so they fail to meet referencing criteria). Otherwise the holding deposit just becomes the first months rent.0 -
sooz- I know what a holding deposit is supposed to be for.:)That's rather harsh, on both LLs and LAs who take holding deposits.
A holding deposit is needed to take the property off the market & to start referencing.
Otherwise, the LL or LA would end up paying lots of referencing fees for potential tenants who had no financial obligation or any contract to then take on the property.
There is a however, a difference between a holding deposit and a referencing fee. In the majority of cases, those who have provided a great deal of personal information, plus the costs of a third party credit check & a small add on for an LA to handle a bit of ringing round/ emailing, are unlikely to be non-serious applicants. Many view the handing over of a referencing fee plus that personal data gives enough of a deal for the LA to temporarily remove the property from marketing.
We're agreed there.If the landlord pulls out, these should be returned in full. Which is clearly the case here.
The point is that an LA can put what he likes in his holding deposit contract and think that it will be held to be valid: the fact is that it may not hold up if the potential T has need to puruse the matter to court.And next time, look for another agent who is a member, & not pay a holding deposit without a contract stating what it can & can't be used for.0 -
Morning N79 - your syrup of figs overdue this morning?Oh TBS - get of your high horse and stop talking such rot. Without holding deposits rents will rise as the costs of letting a property rise to deal with the time wasters (of which there are many).
That is your *opinion* and my opinion differs.What matters is not the fact that a holding deposit is taken but the fact that conditions associated with that deposit are clear.
A holding deposit per se is one sided, the benefit being to the LL only. The potential T has provided much personal data, and fees for credit checks - that should be sufficient quid pro quo.
That should be the case if the T has given you the necessary personal info by completing your forms & paid the costs of the checks, plus perhaps a small%, as I suggest above.Like Sooz, I take a holding deposit. In my case it is equal to 1 months rent. This removes the property from the market and means that I stop dealing with any other potential Ts.
Which is how it should be,if a holding deposit is taken, but some LAs/LLs clearly fail to meet your standards.The holding deposit is returned if I decide not to proceed ... in this case I would also return the referencing costs.
You will of course have allowed your potential T sight of the tenancy agreement prior to any money being paid across?
You may find yourself challenged on the first one - OFT guidelines suggest that a LL may only retain a reasonable proportion, directly related to the actual costs incurred by the LL.The T loses the holding deposit if they decide not to proceed (or if it turns out they lied during their application so they fail to meet referencing criteria). Otherwise the holding deposit just becomes the first months rent.
A LL who tries, for example, to retain 200 quid for keeping a property "off the market" for a few days/a week might struggle to show that in that time he would (a) definitely have had other viewers and (b) that one of them would have turned into an actual paying T.
Let's look at holding deposits and the "unfairness" issue. A LL/LA can themselves simply withdraw from the temporary "deal" with no financial penalty whatsoever - what you are seeking to say is that the prospective tenant should be unable to.
My view is that a term allowing a prospective LL/LA to impose a financial penalty on a potential T, without a corresponding right for the T , should be pretty much unenforceable.0 -
That's rather harsh, on both LLs and LAs who take holding deposits.
A holding deposit is needed to take the property off the market & to start referencing.
Otherwise, the LL or LA would end up paying lots of referencing fees for potential tenants who had no financial obligation or any contract to then take on the property.
However, a holding deposit should be accompanied by a holding deposit contract. Mine, & indeed most, state that the deposit is held pending referencing. Furthermore, should the tenants then back out, the deposit is kept to cover the referencing & costs incurred in taking the place off the market. If the landlord pulls out, these should be returned in full. Which is clearly the case here.
Are the LA a member of any EA body, such as ARLA or NAEA?
As others have suggested, your son should go there in person & refuse to leave until he gets his money back. And then take it up with the NAEA or ARLA if the agents are members.
And next time, look for another agent who is a member, & not pay a holding deposit without a contract stating what it can & can't be used for.
The agents do have the ARLA logo on their website so I must assume they are members. They are supposed to be ringing my son up to "negotiate" this morning. I will post the outcome of this when I know. But if they think they can get one over on my son then they didn't account for me being his mother.0 -
It's not unknown for LAs to misrepresent their membership of the usual bodies, so Ts can always check that membership via the ARLA, NALS own websites etc.
To help you/your son deal with this LA, here are the guidelines from OFT (Office of Fair Trading) . There will, no doubt, be a post from someone saying " they are *only* guidelines", and it is true that you would need to have confirmation from a court, but the Trading Standards office at your son's local Council should be able to assist. There is also a Tenancy Relations Officer (private sector housing) at most Councils -s/he can also help if you are having problems with an LA/LL.
The whole point of this is that your LL won't be receiving any of that money - it is quite simply a bonus for the LA, who also charges fees to the LL, plus receives commission on an ongoing basis once a T is in situ.
Most LLs/LAs who are registered with a Uni accomms office have to abide by a specific code of conduct: even if your son didn't go via the AO it's perhaps worth him highlighting his experiences so that other students become aware of a potential difficulty.Tenants should be able to read the agreement before being asked to pay holding deposit or becoming financially bound in any way.Source:OFT356
Pre-contract deposits and 'security' deposits
3.41 A 'no refund' term where the tenant is required to make a substantial prepayment before a tenancy agreement is signed, is likely to be unfair. It is common for letting agents to seek a deposit from the prospective tenant once a property has been selected, but terms that preclude refunds of this type of deposit, under any circumstances, may be considered unfair.
3.43 An alternative is to set a pre-contract deposit that reflects only the ordinary reasonable expenses necessarily incurred by the landlord. Such a genuine 'deposit' can legitimately be kept in full, since it would be a reservation fee rather than an advance payment. However, such a deposit will normally be no more than a token amount. Otherwise it is liable to be seen as a disguised penalty, even if it is expressed as a payment for a service (see paragraph 3.58).
Refund of prepayments
3.67 Under a pre-tenancy agreement the tenant pays a deposit to the landlord or agent to secure a property before signing the actual tenancy agreement. We object to cancellation clauses if they allow the landlord or agent to cancel without acknowledging any right of tenants to a refund of prepayments,
particularly where the terms state that the landlord can decide not to grant a tenancy, and retain the tenant's pre-contract deposit.
3.68 A landlord may refuse to offer a tenancy if the tenant's references are unsatisfactory or the tenant fails the verifying or screening process used by the landlord or the agent. However, because landlords or agents have the right to decide what is unsatisfactory or the criteria for failing the screening process, there is scope for them to enjoy unlimited discretion to refuse the tenancy, and so to unfairly retain the deposit. This is unacceptable in our view. Where the landlord cancels a pre-tenancy agreement in response to the tenant's serious breach of contract, he may be entitled to retain some or all of the tenant's prepayment as compensation for any loss directly caused by the breach. We may regard a term as unfair if it makes a substantial prepayment non-refundable in all such cases, regardless of whether the landlord has suffered any loss of this kind.
3.69 A tenant would be in serious breach if, for example, he induced the landlord to enter the pre-tenancy agreement by knowingly giving a false statement or misleading information, or instigating someone else to do so on his behalf. In this instance it could be fair for the landlord to keep as much of the prepayment as is reasonably required to cover his legitimate expenses. However we would expect there to be a full refund of all pre-payments where there has been no breach of the agreement by the tenant and the landlord chooses not to proceed with the tenancy, whether or not the landlord views the tenant's references as satisfactory.
Pre-contract deposits
3.85 If the landlord or agents take a non-refundable pre-contract deposit, they may in effect bind the prospective tenant to accept terms 'sight unseen'. We are likely to consider a non-refundable deposit to be unfair in any case and it is particularly open to challenge where tenants become bound before they have the chance to become acquainted with the terms of the tenancy agreement.
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