Letting Agents shut down

HouseBuyer77

Your LL sounds like an idiot, so be prepared for a lot of arguing, but your deposit is definitely their responsibility. Do you have a contact address for the LL?

It might not be. Some agents do actually rent out the house, rather than simply act as agents in which case the tenants contract is with the agent and the agent is the LL. Generally this is done by companies that offer guaranteed rent schemes.

OP - What does your contract say? It will say who your landlord is. If that is indeed the person who you assume to be your landlord then they are responsible for the deposit. It's not your problem the money's gone missing, it's theirs (they still need to give it back to you even if they can't recover it from the agent).

MyOnlyPost

You didn't pay your deposit to your agent, you paid it to his agent.

The letting agent collected the deposit on his behalf and should then have registered it on his behalf. If they failed to do this, he is responsible

kerrit123

This is why he has written up a new contract, so now I pay my rent directly to him.

@Out, Vile Jelly

I am in England yes and I do have all of his contact details. I am wary with arguing with him because he has been quite lenient, he has let us paint the walls (as they were a mess when we moved in) and he has let us have pets too. I don't want to be put in a position where I'm being forced to move out because it's a nice house in a good location, cheap and I'm worried that I won't be able to find somewhere else in the same price range that will allow pets at short notice.

kerrit123

@HouseBuyer77

The contract has my letting agents details at the top of it but they haven't signed it. It's been signed by the landlord, myself, my partner and my guarantor.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

kerrit123 wrote: »

This is why he has written up a new contract, so now I pay my rent directly to him.

@Out, Vile Jelly

I am in England yes and I do have all of his contact details. I am wary with arguing with him because he has been quite lenient, he has let us paint the walls (as they were a mess when we moved in) and he has let us have pets too. I don't want to be put in a position where I'm being forced to move out because it's a nice house in a good location, cheap and I'm worried that I won't be able to find somewhere else in the same price range that will allow pets at short notice.

I hope you have written permission to paint the walls, and had a detailed inventory done at the start of tenancy. If you have gas heating has this been checked annually?

Well it's your choice to write off the deposit and gift it to idiots and criminals.

G_M

Whoa!

Let's not jump to conclusions!

OP. Look at your tenancy agreement. On the first page it should name the 'landlord'. What is written here? The name of the agent (A, B or C)? or the name of the owner of the poroperty?

It is possible, for example, that the owner let the property (perhaps under a 'guaranteed rent scheme', to the agent. This would be a commercial tenancy. The agent then sublet to you (under an AST).

If this is the case, your landlord is the agent.

But I agree with others that it is more likely that the owner is your LL (hence check the name on the contract). If so, then the agent is irrelevant to you. He is simply a kind of employee of the landlord. Your LL is responsible legally for everything, including returning your deposit ( I hope you have evidence of paying it?). He is also liable for the failure to register the deposit and you could claim the penalty off him.

If his agent let him down that is his problem but does not let him off the hook.

HouseBuyer77

kerrit123 wrote: »

@HouseBuyer77

The contract has my letting agents details at the top of it but they haven't signed it. It's been signed by the landlord, myself, my partner and my guarantor.

Sounds like he is the landlord then. If it were a scheme where the agent lets from the landlord, then sublets to tenants he wouldn't be party to the contract (it would purely between you and agent).

SerialRenter

G_M wrote: »

Let's not jump to conclusions!

But that's my favorite type of jumping

eddddy

@kerrit123 - I'm not sure if you've got the gist of things. So here's a different way of explaining it...

kerrit123 wrote: »

The contract has my letting agents details at the top of it but they haven't signed it. It's been signed by the landlord, myself, my partner and my guarantor.

So it sounds like you and your partner have signed an AST (contract) between yourselves and the landlord.

(The Landlord had asked an agent to help him with this. It's a bit like Landlord employing the agent to do work for him.)

kerrit123 wrote: »

This is why he has written up a new contract, so now I pay my rent directly to him.

You didn't need to sign a new contract with the Landlord, because you already had one - see above.

But that doesn't matter - unless the Landlord was tricking you, and persuaded you to sign a worse contract than you already had.

kerrit123 wrote: »

I spoke to the landlord about it and he said that the deposit is nothing to do with him because my contract and deposit are all through the letting agents.

The agent has stolen the money from the Landlord, not from you.

So the Landlord needs to persue the agent to get his money back. Whether the Landlord gets his money back or not, the Landlord still has to pay you back your deposit.


(As an analogy... Let's say you buy a TV from Tesco for £200. You hand over £200 cash at the till. Later the cashier steals the £200 from the till and runs off. It's Tesco who has lost £200, not you.

If you return the TV for a refund, Tesco still have to refund the £200, even though that money has been stolen from them.

In the same way, it's the Landlord who has lost the deposit money, not you).