Letting agent not paying me owed money!!

mchale

Agreed, my point was until you know the facts don't name & shame

outofmoney

Same happened to us (except we were the tenants). LL was always paid late. The agents told the LL it was us paying late but luckily he realised it wasn't. In the end LL arranged for us to pay him direct and he ditched the agents. They went bust not long after so it was a lucky escape.

agrinnall

mchale wrote: »

Agreed, my point was until you know the facts don't name & shame

He does say in the first post "the tenants paid on time".

OP - I would think carefully about paying the cancellation charge, if they do go bust very soon then maybe they wouldn't be in a position to chase you for it and you'll be £300 better off.

DVardysShadow

mchale wrote: »

Before you go jumping to conclusions, have the tenants paid the agent?

Its not very professional coming on a public forum and naming a company without knowing the facts

I see no issue with naming the agent and mentioning that they are paying late, despite tenant paying on time. This is objective and provable. To go on from there and express a concern and ask for advice on how to address that concern is similarly fine. What would be out of line would be to draw the conclusion they were going bust.

DVardysShadow

agrinnall wrote: »

He does say in the first post "the tenants paid on time".

OP - I would think carefully about paying the cancellation charge, if they do go bust very soon then maybe they wouldn't be in a position to chase you for it and you'll be £300 better off.

I agree to a point. But.

If rent is £500 and they are charging 15% +VAT, that is £90/month. So if they survive for another 3 months, it would be better to cancel. It depends on your estimate of their likely survival and the rent involved.

Having said that, I imagine in general terms, if a Letting Agent starts being late forwarding rent, a lot of their landlords will be going through the same thinking, so a small initial problem could snowball over a month or 2.

princeofpounds

You could always offset the non-paid rent as the cancellation charge, which instantly reduces the amount of exposure you have to to the firm.

You cannot escape the charge, as breach of contract by one party does not permit the other party to just breach at will. You might find that if they really are in trouble then they never chase you for it (or perhaps they will if they are just hanging on or an administrator thinks it worthwhile). But then they will probably just offset against the rent money they hold anyway as that is by far the easiest way for them to collect.

Key thing is to make sure the tenant starts paying you instead from now on.

DVardysShadow

princeofpounds wrote: »

You could always offset the non-paid rent as the cancellation charge, which instantly reduces the amount of exposure you have to to the firm.

Agreed. But do this quietly, getting the tenant on side to pay rent direct and leaving it to the end of the month to see if the rent comes in before cancelling.

mchale

urinal wrote: »

He does say in the first post "the tenants paid on time".

Re read it properly

mchale

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I see no issue with naming the agent and mentioning that they are paying late, despite tenant paying on time. This is objective and provable. To go on from there and express a concern and ask for advice on how to address that concern is similarly fine. What would be out of line would be to draw the conclusion they were going bust.

Re read it properly

DVardysShadow

mchale wrote: »

Re read it properly

Explain your theory.