I want to take my lettings agent to court. Do I have a case?

saajan_12

Your tenancy agreement is with the Landlord, not the agent, regardless of who you pay your rent too (similar to how you go after Tesco not the checkout worker if there's an issue with a product). For the fees, there are two possibilities:

A// Separate contract with letting agent to pay fees in return for references, credit checking etc to put you in good stead for the property. Then you received these services regardless of how long the tenancy lasted, so the agent is correct that no refund is due. If there are any fees for services not completed (e.g. checkout) you are due a refund on this.

B// Fees were part of the LL's fees they required and if you passed the checks, you would get a 1y tenancy, agent was just the LL's representative. You paid the fees and passed the checks but ultimately only got a 30day tenancy. Then, you may be able to claim some of the fees from the LL (who can claim from their insurer). However, this may have already been settled in the mutual surrender of the tenancy.

charoniv

Did the tenancy agreement include a clause that the landlord could terminate the agreement if the property became uninhabitable?

Your post says that the landlord agreed that you could terminate the tenancy early - if that's what you did then I guess you don't have a case.
The landlord has a responsibility to provide you with accommodation which he is unable to do - so you could have negotiated these things when the contract was terminated.

flora55

Thank you for the advice although I don't know why some people think it's helpful to be rude in their replies eg "god knows why you agreed an early termination without compensation". It has been an extremely stressful situation to be in, to be suddenly homeless, and so perhaps I haven't done everything in the correct way but I have never been in this situation before so didn't know what I was entitled to from the landlord or if I was entitled to compensation.

I spoke to the landlord about the fees and he said we had to speak to the lettings agent as we paid the fees to them not to him. He also said he paid £1500 in fees which he is not expecting to get back so I don't think he will be open to refunding us any of our fees. Especially as he said we could find somewhere else to live for 3 months and then move back in or move out permanently and the decision was ours to move out as we couldn't find anywhere for a short period without having to pay higher rent.

Pixie5740

If the property was genuinely uninhabitable then the contract (tenancy) would have been frustrated and therefore the tenancy ended. It's a crap situation to be in. The only letting agency fee that I think you have any chance of getting back is the check-out fee because no check-out was carried out. That could be worth sending a letter-before-action to the letting agent.

G_M

flora55 wrote: »

.....

I spoke to the landlord about the fees and ......He also said he paid £1500 in fees which he is not expecting to get back ......

Ask him what the £1500 was for. Is there an overlap - eg part of that was for credit checking prospective tenants.

Then check which ombudsman scheme the agent belongs to.

The Property Ombudsman scheme, for example, does not allow agents to charge both parties (LL & tenant) for the same service.

Complain to he ombudsman.

https://tpos.co.uk/images/documents/rules-codes-obligations/residential-estate-agents/TPOE27-6_Code_of_Practice_for_Residential_Estate_Agents_A4_-_effective_from_1_Oct_2016.pdf

5n
You must not make a tenant or landlord pay a charge for or be
liable for an element of your service that the other party has
also been charged for in the course of the same transaction.

mrginge

flora55 wrote: »

Thank you for the advice although I don't know why some people think it's helpful to be rude in their replies eg "god knows why you agreed an early termination without compensation". It has been an extremely stressful situation to be in, to be suddenly homeless, and so perhaps I haven't done everything in the correct way but I have never been in this situation before so didn't know what I was entitled to from the landlord or if I was entitled to compensation.

I spoke to the landlord about the fees and he said we had to speak to the lettings agent as we paid the fees to them not to him. He also said he paid £1500 in fees which he is not expecting to get back so I don't think he will be open to refunding us any of our fees. Especially as he said we could find somewhere else to live for 3 months and then move back in or move out permanently and the decision was ours to move out as we couldn't find anywhere for a short period without having to pay higher rent.

Don't take it personally, I am rude to everyone.

The fact remains that you let the landlord off the hook when you didn't need to.

There is an argument for frustration of contract, but personally I wouldn't accept that given that the repairs were only temporary and only undertaken for a small proportion of the full tenancy.

What form did the agreed termination take place?
I would have at least been after moving expenses before agreeing termination.
And if there was an insurance claim going in to cover this I'd be looking for the LL to cover temporary rehousing under that claim.

nkkingston

I wonder if he's "let you off" because he'd have been liable to pay for your accommodation until the property you had a contract on was inhabitable again. He'd normally claim that back against his landlord's insurance, I think.

Guest101

nkkingston wrote: »

I wonder if he's "let you off" because he'd have been liable to pay for your accommodation until the property you had a contract on was inhabitable again. He'd normally claim that back against his landlord's insurance, I think.

Not necessary, if a contract is frustrated - IE the repairs would take longer than the contract was active for - which is seems to be. There is nothing either party can do. The LL is losing out on rent too, it's unlikely he'd have chosen that course of action

Pixie5740

jondav wrote: »

I do yes, actually something I posted about myself.

Well that's about as helpful as your other post on this thread. :cool:

saajan_12

Guest101 wrote: »

Not necessary, if a contract is frustrated - IE the repairs would take longer than the contract was active for - which is seems to be. There is nothing either party can do. The LL is losing out on rent too, it's unlikely he'd have chosen that course of action

The repairs were only expected to take ~3 months, presumably lless than the length of the contract.

If the property was truly uninhabitable for a short period, the OP would still need to pay rent as usual, but the LL would have to rehouse the tenants and cover any moving expenses etc until the original property was ready.

It appears that the OP and landlord have instead mutually surrendered the tenancy.