advertised rent lower than charged rent

zoeg-10

Hi All,

Appreciate any advice on this.

We are prospective tenants who had looked at lots of properties in the last week, let alone today & heads where whirring.

We found a flat we liked & went to the estate agents to pay the holding deposit. The rent was higher than we thought it was when we confirmed it with the agent, & we asked if we could make an offer, to which the agent said no, the landlord would not be accepting offers at this price. We discussed & agreed to the price they said & paid the holding deposit, as they had advised others were viewing it all day. When we later got home & viewed the flat online again we saw that all along it had been advertised on four different sites at a lower price. Are we in any way able to dispute this? Coincidently, the lower price we offered was the same as the advertised rent.

We have not yet signed a tenancy agreement, only for the 'lettings reservation' for the holding deposit.

Thank you!

G_M

You've signed a letting reservation based on an agreed rent.

You can, of course, change your mind about signing a tenancy agreement at that price, but don't hold your breath when it comes to getting your deposit back.....

zoeg-10

Thanks.

We do not want to pull out, just pay the advertised rent. As we do feel that we were tricked into the higher price. We were hoping that as we have not signed the tenancy agreement, we might be able to dispute it (on good terms).

I guess we can only ask them, it is just such a disappointing start to a tenancy, and does not fill us with confidence!

zoeg-10

Hi again, I just thought if this could help us....

Yesterday we noticed that the calculations on the lettings reservation form were incorrect & when we called them they asked us to just ammend it on our copy, and they will on their copy. Could this make these invalid now? As we want to know that both copies are the same & we only have the photocopy with this ammendment? Could this give us a chance to debate the agreed rent price? Thanks.

MacGirl80

You might want to get new documents drawn up for added security. If you are having difficulties at this early stage it is usually indicative of where things may head in the future, and getting your deposit back in the future may be a hassle as well.

zoeg-10

Thank you, we will request this. Hmm, & we will have to put down a 6 week deposit. Do you think you can ever negotiate the deposit to be a month instead?

dimbo61

I would print the adverts from the other estate agents/websites that show the cheaper price and go back to the letting agent or ring the Landlord direct if you CAN.
Check the tenancy agreement and see if it has the landlords address and phone number.
Please check that the property has a Gas safety certificate and the electrics are safe