Unable to pay rent due to account change and failure of notification

Michy78

Hello All,

I have been renting a flat via an Estate Agent for the past 4 years and Since April last month , i have not been able to pay the rent as the account i used to pay into for over a year , has been closed without any notification.

I have been emailing the Agency several times with no response for over 3 weeks  .

3 days ago i was given a new account by the agency manager however the details do not match based on the bank checks . I took a screenshot of the error i get and they are still not responding 
I have now copied my landlord which i never liaised before to make him aware about the situation.
I never missed any payment or had delays with my rent payment  in the past 4 years and i have also outstanding repairs for over a year due to lack of response and several staff leaving the Agency.

Can i please ask you if i am exposed to any risk although it is not my fault at all ? I have to keep chasing and not sure what do now as it has never happened before 
Any advice or tips on how i shall proceed.

Mark_d

I don't think you're exposed to risk because the EA's bank account is closed/not accepting payments and presumably you have a record of your correspondence where you've been trying to agree how payments should be made.
It is unacceptable that repairs have been outstanding for such a long time.  The Landlord/EA have not been complying with their obligations under the rental agreement.
You should familiarise yourself with the wording in the rental agreement to understand who is responsible for what.  It's possible that the agreement requires you to lay the landlord and  that the landlord is responsible for repairs. It's also possible that the EA is an integral part of the contract and not simply an intermediary.

saajan_12

Re the rent, keep the money aside adding to it each month, so that you have it ready to pay in a lump sum if / when they do get their act together. 

Then write to the LL, cc'ing the agent to state that you are ready to pay the rent of £x and just awaiting the bank details. 

If they do insist the latest bank details provided are correct and the LL confirms in writing that they want  you to use those, then one more thing you can do is pay an odd amount to those bank details and ask the agent to confirm how much was received. If they do, then it confirms it is a correct account which they can access. 

theartfullodger

Your contract (unless it specifies otherwise, v unlikely) is with the LANDLORD not the agent.  Strongly suggest you communicate with landlord: Easy to get owner's address from Land registry for (what used to be) £3.  NB Owner may not be landlord.  But copy anything to agent out of politeness.

Jude57

Mark_d said:

I don't think you're exposed to risk because the EA's bank account is closed/not accepting payments and presumably you have a record of your correspondence where you've been trying to agree how payments should be made.
It is unacceptable that repairs have been outstanding for such a long time.  The Landlord/EA have not been complying with their obligations under the rental agreement.
You should familiarise yourself with the wording in the rental agreement to understand who is responsible for what.  It's possible that the agreement requires you to lay the landlord and  that the landlord is responsible for repairs. It's also possible that the EA is an integral part of the contract and not simply an intermediary.

I do hope the agreement doesn't have this clause! Don't you just hate autocorrect?😂