Agent won't let me see the rental contract until move-in date

muskoka

I paid a deposit on a rental and LA refused to give me a copy contract before moving in day. I turned up at the agents day before move in day & then demanded to see the contract which they did then allow me to see. I read through it throughly, It was completely unacceptable! They would not vary the terms, so I declined. I then went to an ARLA registered agent rented a different place, this agent pre-emailed me a sample contract and I was happy. No problems at al. I'd only rent from an ARLA registered agent now!

If they wont' show you the contract, theres a good reason why

Psychonaut

theartfullodger wrote: »

If you don't like the way your landlord or letting-agent do business, don't do business with them.

Well, of course. But there's not much you can do if almost every other letting agent has the same way of doing business. And from the responses received so far in this thread, that indeed appears to be the case.

Psychonaut

OK, so I wrote the following letter back to the letting agent. I'm not sure it will do any good, though...

Thank you for your letter of 3 November and the enclosed sample tenancy agreement. As we agreed in our telephone conversation this morning, the official document to be signed on 21 December would be the same as the sample, with the exception that §4.5 would be omitted, or else that attached to the agreement would be a statement from the landlord permitting us to keep a pet on the premises. (This pet was listed on the written application forms.) Provided this change is made I am happy with the agreement, and would ask that you send me the updated version once it is available.

I look forward to seeing you again on 21 December to conclude the agreement.

Psychonaut

I thought I'd post an update in case anyone is in a similar situation and wants to know what I've done.

I never received a response to the above letter, so I decided the next best thing would be to get recorded verbal confirmation that pets are OK in the flat. I downloaded and installed Skype Call Recorder, a Free Software package which records both ends of a Skype call, and then used it while calling the letting agent's landline using Skype. I repeated the same concerns I raised in my letter, and the agent assured me that my pet would be allowed, and that everything had been taken care of to ensure the contract reflected this.

So I feel a lot better now... if I show up on moving day and it turns out the agent has forgotten to change the written contract, then at least I have some evidence that they were supposed to.

tbs624

Did you let the LA know that the call was being recorded "for monitoring & training purposes"?

clutton_2

As a LL i think you are making very heavy weather of this.... Sending a sample document simply allows you to read through all of the clauses in your own time - so that you cAN raise issues, like pets, before actual signature.

A tenancy agreement is a serious document and i would not send one out in the post to someone i did not know - especially before credit checks are done.

I am NOT saying you might do this, but i have heard of suspect professional tenants going off with an unsigned agreement, forging the document and trying to get a higher rent out of the council than you were asking....

tbs624

clutton wrote: »

A tenancy agreement is a serious document and i would not send one out in the post to someone i did not know - especially before credit checks are done.

It's precisely because it's a serious document that a T should be given the exact wording of the contract s/he will be signing, in advance, so that s/he can seek her own impartial legal advice if preferred.

clutton wrote: »

I am NOT saying you might do this, but i have heard of suspect professional tenants going off with an unsigned agreement, forging the document and trying to get a higher rent out of the council than you were asking....

Another Clutton "anecdote" - perhaps there should be a sticky with them all in one place;)

If a T is minded to seek to defraud the HB office they don't need an unsigned contract to be able to tryit on and since most LLs let for the full LHA rate or above it I'm not even sure how that one would work in practice.

Any LL or LA who will not supply the tenancy agreement to the T to read in advance is likely to have something to hide and/or an over inflated sense of self importance.

IMHO, it should be made law that a potential T must receive the tenancy agreement a set period in advance - somewhere between 72 hours and a week, with the proviso that the T can use a cooling off period to withdraw where a LL fails to comply.