Renting through an agent

lee1972

Hi

Hope someone can help with this.

I rent out my house through an agent and pay them 10% plus VAT for their services. Last year they sent me a statement of all rent received/costs etc which I then used for my tax return. However, they charged £55 plus VAT for this which I thought was too much (it's £55 for 1 house or 100- I only have one). I decided to keep hold of all my statements for this year and opt out of the service. Unfortunately as I had to reformat my computer, I've lost all the receipts.

I still don't want to pay the £55 but I need all the receipts for my tax return.

Can I request all the paperwork for my account and pay the £10 statutory fee or do I have to bite the bullet and pay the £55?

Thanks

Lee

fishpond

Can you clarify what the £55 is for?

G_M

fishpond wrote: »

Can you clarify what the £55 is for?

and the £10? I assume that is Freedon of Information request? If so, I assume by paying it they will have to give you the information.....


* Letting agents: how should a landlord select or sack?

lee1972

They charge £55 to supply a statement of the account for the past year.

Yes £10 for freedom of information request.

tunnel

It's not like you don't know what you were getting charged each month by the LA so why not just throw together a statement yourself using word or exel, that's all the LA will do and are charging you £55 for the pleasure. It should be enough to satisfy the IR as you obviously have previous with them.

[Deleted User]

As an aside, I format my pc so it has a partition which contains anything I might want to keep if the operating system should need reformatting. Its a life saver.

Or keep im,portant things on a memory stick.

I know hind sight is 20/20 but this doesn't have to happen again.

TartanSaver

deannatrois wrote: »

As an aside, I format my pc so it has a partition which contains anything I might want to keep if the operating system should need reformatting. Its a life saver.

Or keep im,portant things on a memory stick.

Your first suggestion won't help if the hard disk fails, the second could be lost or stolen easily. Even both combined could be destroyed in a fire.

Get yourself some cloud storage! There are plenty of free offerings (Google, Microsoft.) I use MS Onedrive, which is free, and the software allows you to sync it across multiple PCs. Each machine holds the data locally AND it's on the cloud, so no long processing times but also safety. MS and Google both have two factor authentication options, so your account can be pretty safe from hackers.

OP, LAs are not a "public body" and don't have to answer FOI requests. They DO have to respond to a "Subject Access Request" under the Data Protection Act. A warning though - they might drag their feet and deny their legal responsibilities. Ultimately if you go down that route, they may well decide they no longer want you as a customer. Which might be in your interest given the fees!

jjlandlord

If annual statements are not included in their management fee, just tell them that you feel it should, or find a another, decent agent.