Rental price changing after application

AnfieldRoad10

Hi all, last week me and my fiancee viewed a flat which was marketed at £350 per month which we thought was a bargain. Went to the LA today to put an application form in (Belvoir Lettings) had got so far down the form when they said that they were representing another company for this particular property, who required us to fill out a different application form to the ones they had. (To be honest, they didn't seem too sure what was going on themselves).

Anyway, they said to us that they would email over the forms and in the meantime as far as both us and themselves were concerned, the property was ours. They said they would change the listing on rightmove to under application and it was just a case of sorting out the referencing. They even discussed a move in date with us.

Got home tonight, received an email from them at 5:04 saying they still don't have the forms but would forward them as soon as they did. Went on to rightmove and belvoir's website only to find that the property is still available and is now being marketed at £400.

I know we have signed nothing (they wouldn't let us, we even offered to pay the holding deposit because we really like the place) but is there anything we can do? Or is it possible that it is a mistake on their part?

Many thanks
Liam.

cooltt

sorry mr you've signed nothing given no money so you've had it i'm afraid.The property may have been more popular than they thought or they may have made a mistake with the original listing.

AnfieldRoad10

Why stop us half way through the application then instead of just being honest and saying look, we made a mistake? We turned up with the intentions of paying whatever money they asked us for, it just seems a bit funny that as soon as they get interest on the property they push the price up, even during the viewing the person showing us round quoted us the same price as on the website, so for them to make a mistake both in person AND on the website is pretty stupid.

cooltt

Welcome to the world of Letting agents!
If your able try looking for a property in your local paper or via gumtree that is advertised by the landlord himself. No agency fees and no idiotic middlemen to deal with. I will say that not all letting agents are rubbish though.....just most of them.

tbs624

OP - why not just ask the question of the LAs themselves? Unfortunately, if nothing has been signed there is not a great deal you can do.

You can leave a comment on their practices at https://www.allagents.co.uk and you may want to consider trying to rent direct from a self managing LL, as cooltt suggests, by going via the local LL association and/or the council's private sector rentals section who may run accreditation courses for local LLs and hold a list of those who have undertaken them.

jjlandlord

Seems to me that filling in an "application form" is not an agreement of anything from the landlord, but rather an expression of interest from a prospective tenant.
In any case, at most it is an offer from the prospective tenant.

hellokitty08

in my opion what is likely to have happened is that they have made an error in re-advertising.

a quick phone call should sort all that out, i wouldnt assume they were doing you over because of some change of details on an advert.

however if they are let us know.