Is This Legal? My Letting Agency is Registered as Dissolved Company House

ryanruzz

Hi Guys,
Currently renting from an agency for about 2 years now and I just found out that they are registered on company house website as dissolved since May 2018, but they are still sending out invoices under this name. The house is a HMO and they have only applied for the license in January / February of this year.

I would like to find out more about whether this is legal. Any help will be appreciated. Why? Well the house is lack of repairs and we keep getting told it will get done and months have gone by without actually doing anything, and I am constantly wasting my time to chase them. I will be moving out, but I would to see if I can get back some if not all of my money for the stress and conditions the Landlord has forced on us, due to high cost of living these days.:(

House is a 7 bedroom house with a annex
annex has is own bath shower and kitchen
One of the rooms is a larger room that they rent as a double is there is 8 living in the main house. 2 bathrooms and 2 additional toilet rooms

AdrianC

Just deal with the landlord directly. The agent is simply that - his agent. Your landlord hasn't changed. If he wants to continue paying his money to a dissolved company, that's his look-out.

ryanruzz

Thanks. That is what I was thinking. Here is where this gets really interesting which is what I forgot to say. The House is Registered to the owner of said company or what I have been constantly told. My issue is I don't know if what they are saying about the ownership of the house is correct or if its just a way to avoid telling who the actual owner is, so they never find out just how bad the agency / maintenance company is.

If the owner of the letting company and the landlord is the same who is liable for the HMO license, and since I have discovered that they don't: have a license, can I get back all my money for the time they have lied to council and others?

AdrianC

ryanruzz wrote: »

Here is where this gets really interesting which is what I forgot to say. The House is Registered to the owner of said company

Irrelevant.

He owns(owned) two things.
1. A house.
2. A limited company.

Number 2 may or may not have been closed down. This does not affect number 1.

and since I have discovered that they don't: have a license, can I get back all my money for the time they have lied to council and others?

No. You paid for accommodation, you received accommodation. If you don't like that accommodation, move.

ryanruzz

Thanks again. Of course I am going to move. Not the type of person to really complain about stuff until it gets too much and in this case it has. I am in the process of moving.

I know there are decent Landlords out there and they wold deserve this.

But they are some that deserve all you can throw at them and more. When I called the Local council they advised that they haven't started suing people themselves as yet, but is in the process. A house this big needs to have a cleaner and maintained correctly. I just never noticed it as much since I was travelling a lot before.

G_M

1) what name appears on your tenancy agreement at the top where it says: "The Landlord:..................." ?


2) Pay £3 to the Land Registry here and download the Freehold title. Check section one to see the name of the registered owner.

ryanruzz

:T This is why it's good to ask questions, you find people helping where they can as they know something you don't.

Lets just hope the Tech companies building androids and A.I.'s learn from movies to ensure they included at the very least the first, second rule and third rule. Protect all humans, never to over throw human rule, and help whenever possible.

Thanks again, closer to solving an issue with how is actually accountable, or rather solved.

jonnygee2

Lets just hope the Tech companies building androids and A.I.'s learn from movies to ensure they included at the very least the first, second rule and third rule. Protect all humans, never to over throw human rule, and help whenever possible.

I'm a bit confused as to why the plot of I, Robot is relevant to this thread?

but I would to see if I can get back some if not all of my money for the stress and conditions the Landlord has forced on us

It's very unlikely you can get any money back. You will not get money back for time spent chasing them etc.

Have you checked if your deposit is registered with a scheme?

ryanruzz

Definitely not relevant to topic. I not using this knowledge or process to go after what I paid for, as I have used/lived here for sometime. What I am after is getting them to stop these antics.

Luckily my deposit is protect due to the people I rented it from at the time, who I thought was the landlord at the time. Later found out this was just another of his schemes to get people in when I had to call a number provided to get something fixed.

jonnygee2

What I am after is getting them to stop these antics.

In that case, prepare for bad news.

Although there is ever increasing regulation for landlords, so far I have found that there is basically no enforcement. It generally falls on local housing officers to enforce any rules, but of course local councils are generally in financial difficulty.

Several years ago I was living in an unlicensed HMO. I reported this to the council (Kensington & Chelsea) - it took several weeks to even get a reply to an email and by the time I moved out about 6 months later the local housing team had still not managed to schedule a visit. I suspect if they had visited they would just have written a letter a few months after the visit and then waited another several months.

Many councils are now scaling back services to the legal minimum, I doubt housing enforcement officers are a priority for them in the current environment. The best defence against rogue landlords right now is for tenants to avoid them, name and shame, move out etc.