Cleaning Charges from Letting Agency

evoke

Whoa!

This is the same letting agnecy that is providing the long-term accommodation for the OP. Getting their backs up at this stage is likely to make their stay in their long-term property uncomfortable.

Is it actually worth rocking the boat over this matter?

The OP could be inviting the letting agency to have zero tolerance for any mistakes by the OP going forward. I say it's not worth p*ssing off the letting agency that is providing your long-term home.

MissMoneypenny

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Sounds to me like the previous tenants should have picked up this bill when they left.

Perhaps they were given the place dirty too? It sounds more a case of the lazy letting agent (or landlord) not checking that the place is clean for the next tenent. It wouldn't be the first time a tenant was given a dirty property.

OP, did you charge the letting agent for their mess up with your moving date, which meant you had to pay for two moves?

MissMoneypenny

evoke wrote: »

Whoa!

This is the same letting agnecy that is providing the long-term accommodation for the OP. Getting their backs up at this stage is likely to make their stay in their long-term property uncomfortable.

Is it actually worth rocking the boat over this matter?

The OP could be inviting the letting agency to have zero tolerance for any mistakes by the OP going forward. I say it's not worth p*ssing off the letting agency that is providing your long-term home.

Renting a property is a business contract between two parties, the landlord and the tenant. The landlord (not the letting agent as you suggest) is "providing" the property; the tenant is "providing" the landlord with the means to pay his mortgage; the letting agents is being "provided" with money from the landlord and tenant. That is how business works.

I hope you are not saying that the letting agents will try to do anything illegal or try to bully the tenant? Councils are taking bad letting agents and bad landlords to court for that type of behaviour.

OP has already said that they are now dealing with the landlord (luckily for the landlord and tenant).

If the landlord has any sense, he will move his property away from incompetent letting agents that get muddled over the moving dates and who fail to get a signed (by both parties) inventory, when a tenant moves in.

chris_m

evoke wrote: »

The OP could be inviting the letting agency to have zero tolerance for any mistakes by the OP going forward.

Conversely, by just accepting the charge whether it is right or not they could be giving the agency the impression that they can easily be walked over in the future - at checkout or renewal time, etc.

HANDCJJ

Thanks again everyone. I think that because we are still with the same letting agency at the moment it makes things difficult.
I agree that if we put up a fight it could make things very awkward for the next 12 months but also agree that paying this amount could make us look we are basically walk-overs!
We both still feel that we should still argue our cause but not sure what the consequences of not paying the charge could be as we never paid a deposit for the short-term flat.

BitterAndTwisted

Query why they think the charge is reasonable given that the property was dirty when you moved in.

DVardysShadow

HANDCJJ wrote: »

Thanks again everyone. I think that because we are still with the same letting agency at the moment it makes things difficult.
I agree that if we put up a fight it could make things very awkward for the next 12 months but also agree that paying this amount could make us look we are basically walk-overs!
We both still feel that we should still argue our cause but not sure what the consequences of not paying the charge could be as we never paid a deposit for the short-term flat.

I think you have neatly encapsulated the downsides of both paying and not paying.

Personally, I would be arguing this on the difference between states on entry and leaving.