Good Morning I have a letting agent who was managing my flat on a 6 month shorthold tenancy, my tenants moved out after the 7 months and I have now since moved back in. I have asked my agent to claim for a carpet because the tenants moved in a kitten without permission. The pets I presume destroyed the bedroom carpet which was only 6 months old when they moved in. I have also claimed for destroying a large wardrobe left broken and dismantled and one week’s rent owing. My agent asked me to bring in any evidence so I took photographs and took them to his office he then said he would deal with it for me and contact the tenants. Now here we are one month later and I have had a letter from him asking me to open a free account with deposit protection.com, so he can transfer the deposit to me and then he has asked me to pay him £25 per hour to deal with it. Now I am really confused why would I want to do this when I know longer rent out my flat??? ( Please Advise) Right from the start the agent has been really bad he has never kept me informed of any of the little extra he has taken like boiler knobs that got broke n (boiler one year old and under guarantee) I was charged £50 for a plumber to come in and pull one knob off and push it on to the one control needed most. When I came back into the flat, I went up my local plumber supply and bought new ones a full set for £10.It then took me all of 3 minutes to fix them on the boiler. I was also charged another £50 to screw a door handle on (upside down) that had come loose and fit a fire alarm which I have since found out I did not have to have an alarm. I would have fixed one myself if the tenants had asked me for one. Again none of this was I informed of. All throughout the tenancy I was informed of nothing. I was also told that any rent arrears where covered with the management fee. Which is also a lie or I would have the one week’s rent owed by now? I was also given no notice of tenants moving out so could not make any plans with the flat in advance. When I noticed the cat I told the tenants I could not let them have him has I have a allergic reaction to them and prefer no animals. They then told me that the agent said they could have them before they moved in and that he had asked me and I said yes. Again the agent had said nothing to me I then spoke to the tenants and said they could keep the cat providing they had the carpets professionally cleaned when they moved out and paid a pet deposit to the agent. I then spoke to the agent to let him know what I had agreed. Phoning him back a month later he told me he had taken the deposit for the one cat (three months later they moved in a second kitten without permission which I believe may have done the damage to the carpets ) I have asked for the checkout report from them also and still nothing from them I now am beginning to wonder if they ever did one?? I am not being greedy with my claim I did have the carpet professionally cleaned but the urine smells was still there. I have since replaced the carpet with a much cheaper one and only charged for the new carpet not for the cleaning I paid for. I was so glad to get my flat back I have since decided that letting is not for me but I am shocked to see that the agent despite keeping me informed about Zero!! Is he trying to pass the buck on to me? Can you please advise me what to do because I do not have a clue which is why I took on a full managing agent in the first place and did not try to let it out myself? I lived in the unfinished flat upstairs and decided to let my flat out to help pay for materials to complete the one upstairs I was always nice to the tenants and always asked them to come to me if they had any problems . I am excellent at DIY and any job that was done I could have done 100% better. Any advice on this on where I may stand with this matter would be so helpful to me I am hopeless at paperwork and civil matters Lorraine

Hi, I have been fined for parking with reason "PARKED IN A RESTRICTED STREET DURING PRESCRIBED HOURS". I genuinely believed I was ok to park there. This is how the road looks: Picture 1 - As we enter the street. There is a sign that it is a controlled zone, but there is another one, please see 2nd and 3rd pictures. Picture 2 and 3 - There is a yellow sign on the right side. Now I believed that this meant I could park on the left side of the road (from the point of view of the camera), which I did. I believed the yellow sign meant that in that particular direction the restriction applies only between 1 and 2 pm, and it was outside of this time frame when I parked. It may be just the lack of my knowledge regarding parking signs, and I would appreciate some help. Thanks in advance.

Hi All ... I'd be grateful if someone could advise me on this matter, please. In June I received a letter (dated 08/06/12) from a company I'd never heard of ... 'Experto Credite' ... claiming that I owe £355. The letter states: "Your account details have been passed to us by National Westminster Bank PLC to act as a collection agent and we will now be dealing with your account. If you are making payments to Intrum Justitia then there is no need to contact us as we have taken over the management of this account but the address and bank account remain the same, so we will continue to receive your payment." I immediately wrote to Experto and asked for further details of the alleged debt. I received their reply this morning. Apparently the debt relates to a NatWest credit card that I had in the year 2000(ish!) I was made redundant in 2001; fell into arrears with the monthly payments; and NatWest took me to Court so I was lumbered with a CCJ. I then started to make regular payments ... and once the debt had dwindled significantly, NatWest transferred it to a DCA called 'Intrum Justitia'. This was on the 8th May 2003. I was paying 'Intrum Justitia' £30/month, but missed one installment so they transferred the account to 'Geoffrey Parker Bourne Solicitors' (NB: they call themselves 'solicitors' but they're just a DCA). Now as far as I was aware, I continued to pay 'Parker Bourne' until May 2009 when I assumed (by my own calculation) that the debt had cleared. So I am completely confused ... Why would 'Experto' think that I might still be paying 'Intrum' when the debt was moved on to 'Parker Bourne' and repaid? At the end of the letter 'Experto' write: "Your account has been placed on hold for our client to respond to your request". But who is their client? And if I still owe money to 'someone', then why haven't they been in touch with me during the past 3 years?