Who's right here? Me or Letting Agent?

G_M

Mahsroh wrote: »

.... The only thing is, I do live 150miles away from the property so there are occasions where it's just easier to ring the letting agent and say "sort this problem out".

It's certainly easier to self-manage if you live locally.

But you can deal with most issues if you have a list of local contacts you trust. So a reliable sparkie, an odd-job-man, a plumber, a gas engineer etc.

Helpful tenants is a plus too. So if they have a problem, will they take a photo and sent it to you so you can get a rough idea before calling out the relevant contractor?

[Deleted User]

I would be thinking why am I paying them a percentage of the rent if I have to research everything they say to make sure they are doing it right and not landing me in trouble? How do I trust them when I can easily see how much they don't know?

What have the tenants paid, exactly. Was it just a holding deposit? How do I trust they have paid the whole amount before being given the keys given what has happened so far? What if they give the money to that person you spoke to rather than the manager? What are they being told (ie. do the tenants know what their rights and obligations are given the agency don't seem to know what anyone's rights and obligations are)?

Mahsroh

G_M wrote: »

It's certainly easier to self-manage if you live locally.

But you can deal with most issues if you have a list of local contacts you trust. So a reliable sparkie, an odd-job-man, a plumber, a gas engineer etc.

Helpful tenants is a plus too. So if they have a problem, will they take a photo and sent it to you so you can get a rough idea before calling out the relevant contractor?

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how it worked with the previous tenants. They were spot on to be fair. The only time they ever got in touch was if it was something relating to plumbing or electrics, or something particularly tricky, otherwise, they were pretty hands on and dealt with most issues themselves.

ThePants999

pinkshoes wrote: »

I HATE it when people say that!

This is a forum and we are here to help people if we can.

Kids at school are generally rubbish at 'googling' stuff, let alone how to judge whether a website is a reliable source or not!

And as most kids are rubbish, therefore you will find that a lot of adults struggle too, so it could take them a HUGE amount of time to find what they are looking for from a reliable source.

Or they could just ask on here and have someone point them in the right direction or tell them in much less time...

I disagree strongly with this.

Firstly, if someone is capable of finding a forum, filling in the registration form, using the email link to activate their account, logging in, navigating to an appropriate subforum and creating a thread, they've got NO excuse not to be able to use a search engine.

Secondly, if your concern is distinguishing reliable sources from unreliable ones, a forum is FAR worse than a search engine. Here you just have random strangers you know nothing about replying to you.

Thirdly, it might be much less time for them, but it's much more for us.

Finally, and most importantly, it might be much less time for them the first time. By the tenth time, though, they've even spent more of their OWN time doing it than they would have if they'd learned to Google. We should be encouraging people to use search engines for factual questions with straightforward answers. Forums are for exchanges of opinion, or complicated questions that need a human response.

All of that said, I don't object to this thread, which proved to be interesting in its own right!

Mahsroh

ThePants999 wrote: »

I disagree strongly with this.

Firstly, if someone is capable of finding a forum, filling in the registration form, using the email link to activate their account, logging in, navigating to an appropriate subforum and creating a thread, they've got NO excuse not to be able to use a search engine.

Secondly, if your concern is distinguishing reliable sources from unreliable ones, a forum is FAR worse than a search engine. Here you just have random strangers you know nothing about replying to you.

Thirdly, it might be much less time for them, but it's much more for us.

Finally, and most importantly, it might be much less time for them the first time. By the tenth time, though, they've even spent more of their OWN time doing it than they would have if they'd learned to Google. We should be encouraging people to use search engines for factual questions with straightforward answers. Forums are for exchanges of opinion, or complicated questions that need a human response.

All of that said, I don't object to this thread, which proved to be interesting in its own right!

Thanks for that. For clarity, yes I googled it first, and yes I found the answer that I believed to be correct. The reason for raising the question on this forum was that I was being told differently by a national letting agents who are very experienced in these things. So I thought perhaps there was something that I had perhaps missed, or misunderstood, or perhaps the letting agent had more in-depth information into the law/rules rather than a step-by-step guide on Gov.uk. Hence I asked the question on here to get further opinion on the matter, which has resoundingly confirmed that my initial thoughts on the matter were correct.

Smodlet

Mahsroh wrote: »

Thanks for that. For clarity, yes I googled it first, and yes I found the answer that I believed to be correct. The reason for raising the question on this forum was that I was being told differently by a national letting agents who are very experienced in these things. So I thought perhaps there was something that I had perhaps missed, or misunderstood, or perhaps the letting agent had more in-depth information into the law/rules rather than a step-by-step guide on Gov.uk. Hence I asked the question on here to get further opinion on the matter, which has resoundingly confirmed that my initial thoughts on the matter were correct.

And, more importantly, mahsroh, you managed to entertain ThePants999 for five minutes. :T

pinklady21

Did everyone assume the property is in England?
Rules are different in Scotland, my understanding is that the 30 working days start ticking down from the Tenancy Start Date.

https://www.mydepositsscotland.co.uk/landlords/the-law

Mahsroh

pinklady21 wrote: »

Did everyone assume the property is in England?
Rules are different in Scotland, my understanding is that the 30 working days start ticking down from the Tenancy Start Date.

https://www.mydepositsscotland.co.uk/landlords/the-law

It is in England.

Mahsroh

Update!

I have the certificate from TDS. Deposit was protected yesterday!

As for my other throw away remark mid-way through this thread - my landlord for the house that I rent only wanted to meet to discuss rent rise (which was expected) so not as ominous as I thought. LL also bought the coffees, although there was no cake!!!


As for the letting agents managing my property. Jury is still out. I will monitor the situation over the coming weeks/months!