Letting agent issues

Brunskid

Hi all, hope someone can guide me..

So myself and my partner are looking for a larger place to rent since we are expecting a baby boy shortly.

We found a lovely house and were told it was a first come first serve basis and that someone had said they were going to take it later that day, so we agreed to paying a holding fee of £200 which would leave another £160 fee left to pay on moving in, this was yesterday. I now chase up the confirmation this morning since we still have nothing in writing and I'm told that the fee is £50 more by the same person, I told her no you said £360 Inc VAT and she said oh yes.sorry I got confused and that I was right it was 300. I asked for her to send this in writing and she said she would. I then ring later today after not getting anything for about 5 hours and she told me that due to system issues they are unable to give me anything in writing and that I can continue with the application and fill in the referencing forms (which they managed to send) without the confirmation. I told her I wanted it in writing before we go further.

I have googled the company and turns out the fees are more than double what I was initially told according to the website. The company is Bridgfords and it turns out they have a reputation for this kind of thing.. anyway I was hoping we could get some advice, it was myself, my partner, the LL and LA present when she told me the fees were £300 + VAT (360) but we do not have it in writing and paid £200 by phone as a deposit. What options do we have assuming that we have been lied to? The LL seemed really nice and we want to rent the place but this whole issue with the LA and after reading the reviews (apart from the ones on their site) we are very worried we have basically been robbed of £200 and now either have to cough up much more or walk away neither of which is affordable to us right now 😕

Thanks for any help!

Dave

G_M

Which scheme do they belong to? Look up the scheme's code of conduct.

Since 1st October 2014, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 S83 requires letting agents in England to sign up to one of 3 schemes:

* The Property Ombudsman
* Ombudsman Services Property
* Property Redress Scheme

elverson

Bridgfords were pretty bad when we used them as a tenant (Manchester, about 5 years ago). Have a look at their reviews on Allagents.co.uk compared to other local agents...