Letting agents ripping my son off

F_T_Buyer

Request the full cash back in writing. Keep chasing, and if they haven't done this by the 3rd letter take them to the small claims court.

spikyspiky

Well thank you all for your help. The agents have phoned him today and have agreed to refund the £250 holding fee or whatever they call it. That means they have charged nearly £200 for a credit check. He is going in today to collect a cheque, they refused cash. I personally am not going to let this drop. I will complain to Arla, the OFT and anyone else that will listen. I know not all letting agents are dodgy, but put these ones together with my own letting agent and its hard to have any faith in any of them.
I suppose it would be just his luck now if they stop their cheque.
Thanks again for your help.

RAS

get the £250, then go for the rest via a letter before court action. Do not sign anything that says this is a full payment, acknowledging the rest is non-refundable.

tbs624

RAS's point is important.

Your son could draft his own letter ,to hand to the LA, stating that he does *not* accept the return of the £250 as being "in full and final settlement" and that unless they refund the full amount he will pursue the matter to the county court.

State that he paid the money in good faith and they have failed, on not one but two occasions, to keep to their end of the arrangement. He should put the addresses of both properties and the relevant dates in this letter, keeping only to fact, no "I am furious that...", mentioning to whom he has spoken at the LAs and when to date. If he was not shown a tenancy agreement( & given time to read through it properly) prior to paying over the money he should also mention that.

He should head the letter "letter before action" and give them 7 days in which to cough up. (& keep his own copy of the letter).

jimmytearaway

Hi there, I've had a read through this thread and although it has been helpful I haven't had my own query answered completely.

I went to look at a property with my girlfriend in the same building that I am currently living in. We liked the property and put in an application for a provisional move in date of 1st November. We paid our holding fee and application fee on 28th September, and stressed that we needed the referencing done as quickly as possible so that I could serve my 30 days notice to my current landlord. Their referencing is done centrally by one person and I had to call up on a weekly basis to check on progress and kept stressing the urgency.

As of last Friday when I again called I was told that they had the references back but the manager who needed to clear them was away until the following Tuesday (today). I had told them that as they had taken so long on the referencing side which had prevented signing a tenancy agreement (which we needed to serve notice), we asked to postpone the start date as we could now no longer afford to move in on the provisional date as we would have to pay rent on 2 sets of properties. We realised that this may be an issue with the landlord and therefore offered to extend our contract for a further 6 months if they agreed to this.

The letting agents have told us no and that they are now looking to re-advertise the property but will be keeping our holding fee as we have walked away from the deal. This is not the case, it is just circumstances brought about by their administrative inefficiencies which has made it financially impossible to do so. We are still very eager to take on the property but jsut trying to negotiate a solution to an obvious financial problem which is not of our own making.

Any advice?

mostlycheerful

Jimmytearaway : “We liked the property and put in an application for a provisional move in date of 1st November. We paid our holding fee and application fee on 28th September, and stressed that we needed the referencing done as quickly as possible so that I could serve my 30 days notice to my current landlord.”

What exactly did you say about “as quickly as possible” - did you specify a date and did they agree to that specific date for getting the references back? If not then I don’t think you’ve got a case for asking for your money back.

Apologies if I’m misunderstanding this but if I understand this correctly in order for you to not be paying two sets of rent the 30 days notice therefore had to be 30 days before 1st November, ie 2nd Oct.

Therefore before paying them on 28th September did you inform them that the latest possible to have the references back was 2nd Oct and did they agree to this? Which would only be 4 days so it would seem unlikely that they would agree to this as they would know that it would be unlikely to be possible to do it as fast as that.

But if they did agree it then it would appear that you probably have a case to ask for your money back due to their failure to adhere to what they’ve agreed. However in the absence of having their agreement to this in writing it may be difficult or impossible for you to prove that this was the agreement.

Therefore it would be your word against theirs and if they deny that there was any such agreement then you could try going over their heads to their boss and stressing that this was the agreement and possibly he or she might make an executive decision to keep a customer like you happy and refund your money, whether or not there was any agreement about the date for the references to be back – or alternatively will simply support the staff’s position and refuse. And maybe give you a flea in your ear and tell you not to try it on if they feel that there’s no way any of their staff would agree to turning references around in only 4 days and therefore that it’s inappropriate for you to be asserting that this was the case.

However, if prior to handing over the money on 28 Sept, you did not have their agreement to have the references back by 2nd Oct then it would appear that you would have no grounds to ask for a refund as, as you say they say, you “have walked away from the deal.”

Of course if they had got the references back by say 16th Oct then you would only be double booked for two weeks so is that what you were hoping for? However, again, if you didn’t get them to specifically agree to this in writing at the outset before handing over the money then really you haven’t got much realistic chance of complaining that they didn’t do it by the 16th.

Just asking them to do it “as quickly as possible” doesn’t actually pin them down to any date, does it. Plus they haven’t agreed anything about this either verbally or in writing, have they. They’ve just got on with it at their usual pace, haven’t they. Which to them is “as quickly as possible”, ie that is as fast as they do it, isn’t it. And probably if you asked them to do it in 4 days if they were honest they’d simply say, no, sorry, can’t be done, it’s always at least a couple of weeks and sometimes longer. Yes, I would have had this out with them at the outset on 28th Sept or before, and said, well, actually it has to be done by 2nd Oct otherwise the deal’s off, so can you do it by 2nd Oct cos if you can’t then I’m not paying you now. Yeah, I don’t quite understand why you paid them without a firm assurance about this and apparently just left it dangling.

Whenever I do any business like this or pretty much of any sort I’m always very specific in writing and I always make sure that I get confirmation in writing, preferably on paper but for some things email will do. As a lot of people find, verbal assurances tend to be forgotten and denied by people so for anything important I only consider it likely to be adhered to if it’s in writing. And I know that I’ll only have any realistic chance of asserting it later if there’s any queries or mistakes or changes if I’ve got it in writing. Just reminding them that they said something often doesn’t carry much or any weight, despite the fact that my memory may be clear about it and that they’ve just forgotten or are basically lying to wriggle out of their commitments. Similarly I generally always make sure that I get and keep receipts for everything as you never know when you may need it to prove something. And sod’s law is often that the one time you don’t bother getting a receipt or some paperwork is the one time that you’ll need it.

By the way, I think it’s ok for you to come in on this thread with your query as it is following on from the previous one, and also it’s your first time posting on this forum, but possibly some people may suggest that you start you own thread for your own question. But, anyway, you’re here now so I’m happy to attempt to try to answer it.

Does the above explain your position adequately, or, as I already ask near the top, am I perhaps missing something here? In which case what?

GillsMan7

One question worth asking to Jimmy:

Are you in a fixed term contract or are you in a periodic tenancy. This is important, because if you are still in the fixed-term agreement, you are under no obligation to provide a notice period regardless of what the contract says, though it is polite to give notice. If you are in a periodic tenancy then your notice is one month's notice ending on a rental day (which is not quite the same as 30 days).

So, if you're in a fixed term agreement, you could just leave the property on the day your rent runs out and move in to the new one.

jimmytearaway

I am on a rolling month to month contract at the minute and therefore must supply 30days notice.

I was prepared to take a hit of a week's or even two weeks rent for both property's and assumed that the referencing would easily be done in this time as it was in their own interests to get us t sign as quickly as possible.

The application form asked 'when would you like to move in?' to which we put 1st November, however, circumstances have now changed and rather than walking away have asked to put this back to the 22nd.

They have informed us that they will be readvertising the property and can get a tenant in for the 1st.