Hi, Hope you all had a great Christmas. Just wanted to post an update for you all. Our solicitor contacted the landlord, and receive a phone call yesterday from him, he had no idea we had no boiler or hot water and is going to withdraw the section 8, also he is suing the landlord with our help. He's also agreed to sell the property & signed all the forms and posted them yesterday too. He's offered us another property if we want it and we are to pay him directly from now. Great news for us. I'd like to thank you all for your help & hope you all have a great year!!

No, not as yet. We've just bought a heater for the kids room, it's rather good & we have it on all night on a thermostat that keeps it a comfortable temperature, cost a bit to run but that can't be helped. We're just happy it's looking more positive for us & we're ready for Christmas now.

Just a quick update guys, Went to see the Solicitor today, she was appalled that we we've been living with no heating or hot water since September. She phoned the landlords solicitor & they confirmed they had a problem with the agent. Basically the solicitor is going to counter claim the damp & lack of heating if it's taken to court as well as the discrepancy in the rent arrears but after phoning the landlords solicitor we get the impression it will just be a case of finalising what exactly we owe & paying the landlord direct. I'll keep you posted on the outcome which of course will be in the new year. Thanks for all your help & hope you all have a good Christmas!!

Thanks for the replies. I've provided all we know of the arrears: from the agent: From the landlord: That's all we know right now.

Yeah, that's it. We'd have still gone along with it if we hadn't have seen the landlords statement saying he's not received payments when we know we've been making them. Live & learn though, won't be making this mistake ever again. Yes, i can confirm we've paid all the housing benefit to the agent, however proving that might be a different matter. My partners mum has paid around 11 payments of £120 = £1,320 Take that from the total you came up with leaves £214.2 We can't proove & can't remember the amounts we've paid to top things up, a random £20 here & there.

We just received a letter from the agent: Along with this: And chased it up, no solicitor or anything else was involved, no charges were added as far as we're aware.

Yes, that's from the council website. From 20/04/09 & 13/12/09 the council have paid £2,674.42 Yes, the paperwork will be bank statements i believe. Because, we was aware we were behind, but didn't know the exact amount, my partner was put on the spot to sign to the agreement to avoid being evicted. According to the agent, the landlord then came in to their office angry that they had not discussed the agreement with him, and he wanted his cash. He threatened to leave the agent. I think he may have visited the agent, angry about not receiving his rent from us & angry at the agents apparent lack of doing anything about it unaware that the agent has received the money from us. Can someone please answer this question. Would we normally receive an eviction notice from the agent or the landlord? I'm thinking the landlord has taken matters into his own hands after getting nowhere with the agent. The agent said they knew nothing of the eviction when we first got in touch with them, just before posting here.

Also, I've been trying to work things out, based on the official council website which tells us all the payments we've been made and vs a document from the agent. Agent claims from 29/10/07 to 12/04/09 we paid a total of £4,744.65. The total paid in Housing benefit from 29/10/09 to 19/04/09 = £4,291.38 Partners mum paid around 11 payments of £120 (will find out exact amount when paperwork arrives) = £1,320 Total = £5,611.38 The amount of rent due as per the above document is £6,069.96 That makes a shortfall of £458.58 and not £1,325.31 as the agent claims. Now i know we were paying extra over several months to cover shortfalls in the housing benefit, however we have no proof of this as we don't have receipts anymore, so i guess that's lost money.

No, the £1,752.80 owed at 11/06/09 is according to the agent. At the 08/06/09 the Landlord claims we owed £710.33. Since the landlord is evicting us based on his figures, i'm lead to believe his figures are correct, not the agent who i believe have it wrong. Especially since the landlord hasn't received any payments from the agent since 16/03/09. If that landlord is correct with his figures and the arrears were £710.33 at 08/06/09, we have paid £600 on the arrears, as well as all our rent since we made the agreement on 11/06/09.

I agree. We're going to present everything to our solicitor.

I'll just try to clarify. According to the landlords statement 6 payments of £323.76 are missing from June to Oct 09 = £1,942.56 We've paid 6 payments of £350 from June to Oct 09 = £2,100.00 PLUS 6 payments of £100 for arrears = £600 Total we've paid since june is £2,700. We've also finished working out our payments vs agents totals. Agent claims from 29/10/07 to 12/04/09 we've paid £4,744.65 & the actual rent owed was £6,069.96 a shortfall of £1,325.31 We've calculated (using online council account figures) That we've paid the agent £5,611.38 a difference of £866.73 This means the real shortfall of rent was £458.58, not £1,325.31 Since we know we've paid £600 off arrears since june, and believe all the rent payments are up to date since then it looks to me that we shouldn't be in the mess we are in, and something has gone wrong.

That's according to the landlord statement, yes. However it's not true. We've been paying something every month, and have proof of our payments via the agents receipts since june as we thought it would be best to keep proof of paying the arrears. The landlord claims we owe him £2,329.13 Since we made the agreement in June 09 we've paid (and have all the receipts to prove this) £2,446.24 so we are actually in credit by £117.11 At this point, i don't believe the agents figures at all. After all the landlord is evicting us because of his figures, so they are the ones i'm concerned about at this point.

OK, well we'll prepare everything for the solicitor in a week then. Also, NewSAHD feel free to post the names/addresses to members you think can help.

Thanks for all the help so far, it's really appreciated. We are going to go through all our payments via bank statements & check them with a document we've just found from the agent. If we've made an error i apologise, but i have to be certain at this point either way. I shall post again tomorrow with the details of our findings. Also our guarantor is mailing us copies of all the documents she has, so we should see something there. Thanks again.

Thanks for the reply Jimmy, i didn't see that before i posted. I think our solicitor will send the landlord a letter, or do you think we shouldn't wait for the solicitor & do it ourself, would it not hold more weight coming from a solicitor? Also want to go into more detail why we fell into arrears initially. It was the because guarantor (partners mother) was paying £120 per month as we wasn't getting all the rent paid in housing benifit and she was helping out, she then lost her job & stopped paying it, but didn't tell us straight away, nor did the agent, and the next thing we get is that we owe them the money on the agreement, £1700+ We made that agreement with them, and also went on a new scheme "local housing allowence" which gives more money to private tenants given the fact that private rent is always more than council rent. So all the rent is being payed via benefit & we've been paying £100 for the arrears which we thought was fine until the eviction notice came through.