Subject access request- estate agents

Shandi90

Hello- I'm not sure if you can offer some advice but it's worth a shot. I rented my house out due to illness, the estate agent did not do their contractual visit which they have acknowledged. The tenant basically neglected my house which would have been seen anytime if they did their visit. Long story short they have offered a gesture of goodwill and said if I'm unhappy with that go to the ombudsman.

I did a subject access request to get emails between the specific managers l have been dealing with and asked for specific phonecalls within a given timeframe since June 2023. Instead l have been sent tons and tons of stuff l didn't request dating back to 2021 with no explanation as why the information l asked for hasn't been sent.

Any idea what l can do?

Thanks for any advice and have a happy Christmas 

MeteredOut

Have you gone back and asked why you didn't get what you asked for via the SAR?

BoGoF

Maybe they haven't retained the information you have asked for?

DE_612183

If they don't comply with the SAR - report them to the ICO ( perhaps tell them thats what you're going to do as it could cost them a lot more money that re-imbursing you some costs ).

housebuyer143

It's really common for agents not to do the checks, and while it's no.excuse you should get what you pay for, I think you need to look at what action you might have taken and when had they done it. 

Would you have evicted the tenants knowing it wasn't in the best condition? If not, then just knowing it was being kept messy etc was going to result in the same outcome you got when they left. If yes, how much time passed between the missed check and the tenants leaving date? 

I guess my question is what are you trying to get out of the agent? If it's paying for all the repairs because they missed a visit, I don't think you will get that, even at the ombudsman. 

user1977

Even if these emails or phone calls exist, what would you be doing with them? You've said they've already acknowledged not checking the property, so I'm not sure what else you need.

caprikid1

I think a lot of first time landlords of their own houses have unreasonable expectations as to the way it will be maintained.

There can be big difference between an owner occupier and and what a court would consider acceptable.

Might be cheaper to move on.

Shandi90

Thanks for your thoughts- due to illness l paid for full management and basically the tenant left my house covered in mold, stains and burns on all my carpets and wallpaper all ripped from a cat he shouldn't have had- less said about the bathroom the better 🤮 garden had 4 foot of grass. If if been made aware l could have organised further inspections if he cleaned up or remove the tenant. The phonecalls prove the agent basically knows they are behind over 1000 property inspections so these aren't being done within the yearly contract. I did the access request to see if they had these recordings or if the managers emails show they are advertising something they know they can't deliver on.

BJV

Ref Data request: You could try the ICO https://ico.org.uk/. They should give you the information.

Alternatively, I would calculate how much the repairs are going to cost.

If their goodwill gesture covers it, then for an easy life, I think I would just accept the gesture and move on. 

Ref landlords? We used to use an EA for our houses, and we found out they had not done the inspections they had been charging us for nearly two years. Luckily, only one house was damaged, and that tenant has now gone. We do them all ourselves, and everyone is happier.
 
I think you have to be fair. Wear and tear happens, fingerprints on white walls etc it is a part of life, and we know when someone moves out, we will have to paint, we know we will have to deep clean.

Our not nice tenant, ( who has now gone, thank god )  scratched all the floors, not furniture marks but big gouges, broke the new fridge freezer, broke the lock on the new front door, knocked a chuck of plaster off the wall about the size of a tv and left the bathroom and kitchen in is such a state - I don't think that had done any cleaning for at least 2 months! It cost us a lot to sort it out. We lost the right to keep the tenant's deposit as the lazy EA had done the move-in handover 2 weeks before the tenant actually moved in. So, while no one said that there had not been any damage, as the EA could not prove it was not done before they had the keys, we lost it. 

The EA, in turn, lost all of our houses.

OOh They also allowed their small child to use some of the hall carpet as a good place to potty train! 

user1977

Shandi90 said:

The phonecalls prove the agent basically knows they are behind over 1000 property inspections so these aren't being done within the yearly contract. I did the access request to see if they had these recordings or if the managers emails show they are advertising something they know they can't deliver on.

Bear in mind that the SAR is only going to cover your data - I'm not sure whether that's what you're talking about here, or more general internal chat.

lika_86

user1977 said:

Shandi90 said:

The phonecalls prove the agent basically knows they are behind over 1000 property inspections so these aren't being done within the yearly contract. I did the access request to see if they had these recordings or if the managers emails show they are advertising something they know they can't deliver on.

Bear in mind that the SAR is only going to cover your data - I'm not sure whether that's what you're talking about here, or more general internal chat.

Exactly this. A subject access request is for personal data (information which can be used to identify a person) they hold about you. That may or may not bring up information you want to obtain to show they aren't complying with their contractual obligations.