Letting Agent Dispute

mozza1971

I'm looking for some advice regarding a failure to serve our current tenant with notice to terminate the current tenancy agreement.

Back in April 2013 I telephoned the letting agent managing the tenancy on our apartment to instruct the currrent tenant that we wanted to end the tenancy as we were moving back to the UK after spending 4 years overseas.

The Letting agent requested that an email stating to the formal end the agreement would be required, so I sent an email to that effect and cc'd my wife's personal and business email accounts at the same (both of which were delivered).

After a few weeks of not hearing anything back from the agent I decided to follow up the original email by sending an email to the same address as before asking if the tenant was going to leave earlier or if he fully intended to stay in the property until the end of the lease, mid July.

I then received an reply from the company stating that they never received the email and hence the notice was not delivered to the tenant. This left us in a situation whereby we are returning to the UK in a few weeks time with no where to live.

I contacted my organisations IT support centre who manage our email traffic centrally asking for a delivery report to the companies email address which was duly supplied. The delivery included date/time and UK server where the email was delivered to. My email account never received an undeliverable message back from the letting agents email account. I fowarded this information to the company and made a follow telephone call to the director of the company.

The director explained over the phone that the companies email system had been hacked in the months proceeding my original email although, myself as I customer, never received any notification of this event dispite potential issues with personal information, such as Bank details and personal email addresses being hacked or exploited by unauthorised using for criminal purposes. Not too mention potential problems with their IT system with emails being received currently etc etc. The director also admitted that no system was in place to follow up missed email communication in the event of a IT failure. As we live overseas witht he current time difference of +8hrs GMT all communication with the agent is done via email. When questioned the director gave the name of the member of staff I originally spoke to back in April so it sort of implies that a record of our conversation must have written somewhere?

The tenant has now been served notice and is not due to vacate the properrty until late September, we are currently due back in the UK mid July leaving us without a place to live for 2 months.

The tenant is aware of the situation having been informed by the letting agent and has stated he will try and look for alternative accommodation at the earliest opportunity but has asked for the previous months rental charge to be refunded back in order to facilitate the move quicker.

We are now in potentially going to arrive back into the UK without a place to live and financially out of pocket due to having to try and find alternative accommodation and offering last month rent payment in order to facilitate the move quicker. At the moment we are between a rock and a hard place. We cannot delay our return back to the UK as our tickets are booked etc and we need to settle my 4.5 year and 3 year old in time to start his school/nursery in August.

It seems to me that this has been badly managed and we should be entitled to compensation because of their incompetance and lack of follow up procedures when dealing with important matters such as this.

The whole situation has been very stressful for my whole family as we were planning to move back into our old apartment and not wanting to find alternative accommodation as well as trying to keep up with the mortgage payments on our apartment.

Has anyone got any advice? The company are not admitting liability strangely enough.

ognum

I am a little confused that you waited a few weeks to check that the email had been received by the letting agent, if I had not received a reply with in a day or two I would have been back in contact.

If you have a tenant in your property even if you give notice there is no guarantee that they will leave, that is the nature of the letting buisness, it sounds like your tenant is being very reasonable.

It sounds like you could try the small claims court and see how you get on.

chanz4

The server can prove that th mail server on th other end has recived.

mozza1971

Normally the agent is slow in returning emails anyway besides which I'm paying them to provide a service for me - I shouldn't have to chase them although I see your point - hindsight is a wonderful thing....

Yes the tenant is being very reasonable hopefully he'll managed to find somewhere suitable, I feel sorry that he's being put in this situation through no fault of his own

mozza1971

Hi Chanz4

Can you provide any further information regarding the delivery of the email and how I go about proving if the email was in fact delivered to the companies email address?

Thanks

Mozza71

G_M

Personally I would have


a) put the instruction in writing ie a letter to the agent sent at the same time as the email
b) included an instructiontothe agent to
i) confirm receipt
ii) copy me with the S21 Notice when served
iii) adviseme of any response received from the tenant

If none of the above happened, I'd have been on the phone again fast! As you say, your accomodation when you return to the UK is at stake!

mozza1971

Again there is no guarantee that a posted letter will reached it's destination, I have no facility to send a letter registered or recorded from overseas. To prove a letter has been delivered to a recipiant for definate one would have to hand deliver to the person in question.

Blackpool_Saver

IN WRITING ALWAYS, followed up by phone calls

AlexMac

Tricky- I assume you'll never use the agent again, so from their point of view they have nothing to lose by toughing it out in the hope that you will cave in and go away. Although I guess you could try a negotiated solution, and spell out what you consider reasonable compensation, as that will look better if you subsequently go down a legal route.

They'll probably argue that you could have made more persistent attempts to contact them to ensure they had your instruction (as people above comment), although you do seem to be very organised and capable of compiling a strong dossier of evidence if you do take small claims action against them and/or go to any trades body of which they are members.

You can quantify your loss as a result of their alleged failure in terms of costs of removals (twice) and potentially, added costs of temporary accommodation while you wait for possession, and I guess that will be in the hundreds or very low thousands, so not a great sum? But then if I was you I'd want to give them grief. So good luck. Sometimes stuff happens!

Vomityspice

Couldn't you ask the letting agents to find you accommodation as a way of mitigating their costs and you will defer making a claim?

Smith_007

mozza1971 wrote: »

Back in April 2013 I telephoned the letting agent managing the tenancy on our apartment to instruct the currrent tenant that we wanted to end the tenancy as we were moving back to the UK after spending 4 years overseas.

Oh dear.
Are you aware that you can only issue a "notice to quit" (section 21) to the tenant..... That is to say you can only issue a notice asking them to leave in 2 months and not a notice forcing them out of their home.

A "notice requiring position" (eviction) can only be issued by a court.

You are rather foolish to rely on your property being empty after issuing a section 21 as the tenant is perfectly entitled to ignore this and wait for a court order, which could take many months or drag on even longer in some circumstances. This would be no use to you if you needed your property back urgently.

In your case, it seems you have a tenant who is willing to cooperate. Thank your lucky stars.

mozza1971 wrote: »

The Letting agent requested that an email stating to the formal end the agreement would be required

Oh dear 2
Despite your IT claims, their is no reliable proof that an email has been delivered and read, other than speaking to a person to ask "did you get my email". You are again somewhat foolish for not following up such an important communication and leaving it for "a few weeks of not hearing anything back". There is also a strong argument for a recorded 'signature on delivery' letter.

mozza1971 wrote: »

without a place to live and financially out of pocket due to having to try and find alternative accommodation

Spare a thought for your tenant who is in exactly the same situation.

mozza1971 wrote: »

It seems to me that this has been badly managed

You do not need any qualifications to set up as a letting agent. Many of them are shockingly incompetent and have little understanding of rental law (witness your section 21 for example).

Frankly, your story is nothing compared to the tales of letting agent incompetence on these boards every week.

As always, if you spoke to the agent on the telephone and don't have anything in writing (email rarely counts) you will have a hard time proving anything.