Hi Everyone I am not sure if I am in right section but here goes. We moved house on Monday 1ST June on Wed 3rd I was sorting out wiring the TV and other appliances and found out there was no aerial socket, but there was an aerial on the roof anyway. (turned out to be no good) I spoke to the owners on the Saturday who had come down to see the house they were not happy with the agent. I asked the question when you let this property was there an aerial socket "yes" the previous tenant had cable and they installed it through the aerial box and they had ripped off the cable to the aerial (you could see the clips up the wall) I rang the agent they come round. I said to agent this isn't on we have no TV in the house she said to me get an aerial installed and give me the invoice. So I done this. Aerial was installed on 17th June and cost £271 ( I was shocked ) I paid the man, aerial is fantastic and guaranteed for 3 years and happy we had TVs in the house (my 12yr son was over the moon ) I photocopied the invoice and gave the copy to the agent . I expected to get paid within a fortnight as I am the innocent party who had moved in the house. Am I right in thinking the agent should pay me back the £271 and then reclaim from previous tenant surely I shouldn't be waiting this long ?? (Aug 28) Please help would like to know where I stand on this. Thanks

Letting agents’ fees should be banned to protect tenants in the private rental sector, a new Citizens Advice report has urged. New evidence uncovered by the charity reveals tenants are frequently ripped-off by fees often hidden by letting agents – to the tune of £337 on average. These charges come on top of advertised rent prices and deposits and in some cases can force people into debt, the charity says. The Still Let Down report says letting agents have refused to adopt measures that were supposed to bring transparency and competition to the market. Most agents charge for checking references, but costs range from as little as £6 to £300, according to the study. Renters can also be hit by charges ranging from between £15 to £300 for simply renewing their tenancies. Some agents charged £300 for credit checks that are widely available for £25. Even when moving out of a property, almost half of the 353 agencies polled by Citizens Advice said they charge an average ‘check out’ fee of £76. http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/pressoffice/press_index/press_20150327.htm Citizens Advice wants to gather evidence of bad letting agent's adverts such as the advert didn't include details of the fees, how much fees would be or being asked to pay fees not listed in the advert. You can report it here: https://citizensadvice1.wufoo.eu/forms/bad-letting-agent-ad-report-it/

Hi Caggers My son has got himself into another mess.... He had a joint tenancy (AST 6 month contract). He was unemployed for a while, we gave him money for his rent which he decided not to use for that purpose. The net result was that he ended up at the end of the tenancy with about 4 months of rent arrears; his flatmate also did not pay for at least the final month. The letting agent has now issued a court claim for the rent arrears and a load of other charges (and is of course withholding the deposit - which we paid). Some problems I have spotted: 1. Can the letting agent sue for the rent arrears - surely only the landlord can do this? 2. No LBA was received prior to the papers from MCOL. 3. The figure in the claim has no breakdown, but appears to include the rent arrears from the joint tenant. 4. My son agreed a payment plan with the agent, and made the first payment on this plan. The claim form states that no plan was put into place (we have an email trail showing it did). The claim was only received today, so we have a few days to respond. Any advice on a suitable response (note my son owes some money - but not the total stated on the claim; he is in a position to pay off the arrears in installments). Many thanks Bacon

I own a flat (mortgaged) in a large block, so the property is owned by me on a leasehold rather than freehold basis. The flat is rented out to tenants. I pay a monthly fee to a property management company, who have recently started chasing me for an additional fee for "consent to sub-let". This is the first I have heard of such a fee in the near 8 years I've owned this flat. I have explained to them that the property is let to tenants, and is not sub-let. They have responded by saying that because the property is owned by me on a leasehold rather than freehold basis, that legally I am sub-letting the property rather than letting it. I'm interested to know whether this is legally the case (it may well be, I don't claim to be an expert...), so that I can further assess whether this seems like a legitimate fee they are requesting from me, or whether it's more like a speculative invoice similar to what I would expect a private parking firm to try and charge. Any advice appreciated!

Hi all, am I right in thinking that all letting agents are required by law to be signed up to an approved redress scheme (the property ombudsman, ombudsman services property or property redress scheme)? If this is the case, then who is responsible for enforcing this? Thanks, ben.

Hi, I've just terminated a rent agreement for a residential property that was under a business let with my own company - was accommodation used whilst contracting away for home. The letting agency are being quite difficult about the cleanliness of the property when I moved out, even though I cleaned extensively and left it in good condition (I've been renting and letting my own property for 15 years and I have never seen anything better, tbh). However, their inspection has revealed some dust and a few other items that could be attended to. They are asking for around £250 for what is, at most, a couple of hours work!? They are also asking for the carpets to be "professionally cleaned" and will not accept that anybody other than a "professional cleaner" is able to do this, even though this is not in the contract. FYI, there are no stains on the carpets and they are in good condition, as described in their own checkout report. Additionally, the carpets are not suitable for using a wet vacuum cleaner and I suspect that the only option is normal vacuuming (which I have already done) and the application of dry cleaning powder of some description. Of course, they have refused to detailed what professional cleaning actually entails and there is nothing about this in my contract. How can I challenge this requirement? I have offered to do the work myself or via a local friend (I do not normally live locally), but they have refused to let anybody other than a professional cleaning company back into the property - they reason that this is because my agreement has now ended. The only alternative they have provided is that I may source a "professional cleaner" of my own instead of using theirs. I'm not aversed to spending some money to put this right, but the amount that has been proposed is absurd for the work that actually needs to be done. I've lived there on my own for a little over 8 months, returning to my main residence every weekend, and basically only using the property for a small amount of the day. Throughout that time I have treated it like my own home and kept it very tidy/clean. I appreciate that there may only be limited options to resolve this dispute - the letting agency has no interest in compromising, despite my efforts to come to a reasonable agreement with them. Would appreciate any input from those with experience as, beyond getting a third party to clean, I am not sure where to go next. Thanks, J

Hi Team, I moved to a 2 bed furnished flat via a letting agent. Before moving into the property one of the bedroom didnt had bed in it, so we asked letting agent to request landlord to put the double bed in the 2nd bedroom for which landlord agreed in phone call with agent. After agents confirmation, we moved into the flat as the landlord said he will arrange the bed in 1 week time. Its been 3 months landlord didnt arrange the double bed for the 2nd bedroom. Due to which i had to sleep on the floor from last 3 months, and my wife and 6 months little kid sleep on the main bedroom. Now when agent trying to follow up with landlord, he says he didnt agree for it, and is happy to arrange single bed. For which i am completely against as we didnt agree for the single bed. Between the letting agent and landlord the conversation happened in the letting office infront of us, and the letting agent said...these phone conversations are recorded. I have a written email confirmation from letting agent about the conversation. Now i have sent a written email asking for compensation from letting agent for this sub-standard services, due to which we are having this mental and physical pain. I am seeking the compensation of 1000 pounds for 3 months, and the admin fees i paid i.e. around 400 pounds. FYI...i pay 1050 pounds rent per month, so claiming 300 per month. I send rent directly to landlord as agreed, the letting agent is not managing the property. can you please help, whether i am in right path for claiming compensation Regards, Vamsi

I don't know if you people can help much, as we are actually in Gibraltar but most of the laws down here a copy and paste from the UK. Long story short we moved into our current apartment in February and to be honest had nothing but problems some of which I have listed below, 1 the shower leaked all over the bathroom floor every time it was used and the tray had a sharp crack in it, this took 6 months for them to fix. and now the drains smell so bad in the shower that we have to keep a glass over the drain hole to keep the smell down. 2 The bathroom tap developed a leak this took 2 months to fix so we had no bathroom tap for that time. 3 The how water tank burst and flooded the apartment downstairs, this was fixed the same day! 4 The fridge is broken it gets no lower than 9 degrees they had someone change the thermostat which made no difference and then sent someone else who said it was fine, we pointed out on many occasions that at 9 degrees was to warm, it was only when we said we would create negative press for them that we finally got a meeting with someone higher up who said he would arrange for a temporary fridge and someone would look properly at it the next week without fail, we got the temp fridge but the old one has still not been looked at. 5 The actual owner of the flat wants the electricity bills and water bills in his name as he uses this place as his residence despite living between Spain and the UK to avoid tax in those 2 countries. 6 We have never seen an inventory of what is supposed to be here. The licence for the apartment has been signed by someone we don't know we are not able to tell who signed it. We asked the agents if we could be released from the lease early they said that they would check with the landlord but did not foresee a problem with it so we started to look for another property, we found another property and then checked with the agents again who confirmed that it is ok and there was not a problem so we agreed to take the other apartment. We told our current agents who then said to come in and they would explain the procedure, which then transcribed that they had not spoken to the landlord and we would have to pay a 250 pound admin fee and we would be liable for the rent if the property was not rented until the end of the licence despite telling us that it was not a problem when we double checked. Where can we go from here? by there attitude and tone to us I would not be surprised if they still have not even contacted the landlord and I wonder if I should contact the landlord myself.

I have taken a lettings agency that let my property to the small claims court and have received a judgement as they defaulted and did not reply to the summons. The judgement was mailed to them on August 3, so they have received it by now. I have sent a polite but firm email requesting payment in full within the next 7 days, but I'm anticipating that they will ignore this. The next potential step is enforcement via a third party debt order, but it states in the instructions that I must appear in person at the court when this goes to the judge. I'm resident in the USA, so this isn't practical. Does anyone know whether this can be done by Skype?? If it can't then what type of enforcement would be best? Would appreciate any help and advice - thanks in advance!

Hello folks this is my first post, As stated in the title my letting agent has been taken over by a bigger agent and I would simply like advice as to whether I require the following below: 1.Changes to AST contract, eg deviation in terms. 2.Changes to details in the Tenancy Deposit Scheme with reference to the agent. 3.Change the standing order to suit the new agent although the old agent is stating that it is continuing to run under the new agent (which if true why do they need me to change the standing order to suit the new agent) my gut feeling is that once they have got the existing tenants to implement the changeover to the new agents bank they will dissolve the old agents company. Any advice would be most appreciated, many thanks in advance.

I looked round a house and applied for it, giving £105 over to the Letting Agent. About 23 hours later I decided that I didnt want to move into the house. I rang up the LA and they refused to refund my money. They say it clearly states in the Terms and Conditions they gave me that the monies are non refundable. The Terms and Conditions they gave me had to be signed and handed back at a later date. As I decided so quickly I didnt want the house I never signed the documents, and thus never handed them to the LA. I have not signed anything agreeing that the £105 is non refundable, so should they be forced to give me my money back. I told the LA that they could give me a part refund, as I'm sure they mustve made some phone calls and had an employee take the house off their website. But they still insisted, 'No'. That £105 included the refencing fees. I have never been referenced so they must be able to give me at least something back. But ideally I'd like they whole lot back. Does anyone have any pointers or ideas?

On the 12th of June we have rented through Estate Agency 3bdr house. Due to the pressure put on us we moved in much earlier than we planned - agent said that landlord want to move in asap. We agreed as it was very hard to find something else in our area. From the day after we moved in, there has been significant noise coming from the construction site located just in front of our garden. What we found out was that there will be 6 storey building... I'd like to mention that agent didn't say a single word what kind of hell we can expect and also, there was no sign of machinery in the day of viewing, pictures of the house on their website are misleading too. Engineering machines are working every weekday (within agreed hours of course: 8am till 6pm) and make our living here very difficult. I want to stress out that both myself and my partner work from home but the conditions make it not possible. We have an Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement for 12 months period with break clause after the end of 6 months. There is no way that we will be able to stay in this noise. Kids are complaining for headaches and ear pain. Any chances that we can end it without losing our deposit (we're renting in London, so you can image the amount) and being sued? Thank you for any suggestion.

Hi I moved into a rental property a year ago. The property has electricity only and the water is heated by an immersion tank. I didn't have experience regarding this and I asked the letting agent how the system worked as there was no timer facility installed, the agent advised me that the immersion should be left switched on permanently. I have had very expensive electricity bills since and obviously expected these to be lower during the spring/summer months. I requested Eon to have an engineer visit to assess why my consumption was still high and he was shocked that I had been told to leave the immersion on 24 hours a day as this was the cause of my huge bills! I now want to approach the letting agent to advise them of this and want to know where I stand legally regarding any liability that they may have. As a footnote, the Energy Performance Certificate for the property (dating back to 2009) has assessed the water heating system as 'very poor'.

Hi, Whilst looking around I've constantly had people ask me if I'm in receipt of DSS, and pretty much each and every time, they've said they don't accept it. Question is, do I have to tell them if I am even in receipt of DSS? The reason why I ask is even if there's a break in my DSS housing payments, I've got pretty much enough foraged away to cover rent for a few months. On top of that, as far as I know, DSS comes directly to me, so I personally would have thought that my financial affairs have nothing to do with the LL? The only thing they should be concerned about is what they receive on a monthly basis and that's it. Just a thought, isn't segregating people on DSS classed as discrimination? The train of thought here is that it's literally separating out groups of being by categorising them. Cheers, A

Hi Everyone, I'm in a bit funny situation here, and I would like to know my rights. I found one flat on Zoopla, called the agency and scheduled the viewing. We viewed the flat, but pictures on Zoopla are not representing this flat. After we viewed flat, we said to the agent that we are interested but we did not gave formal offer, agent told us that she will send us form where we can put the official offer to the landlord and we did not signed anything, we asked agent how big discount we can get if we pay upfront for 12 months and agent told us we could get about 50£ less pcm if we offer that. When we come the the home,we found this same flat listed on different web site, for 200 £ less per month with different agency. We contacted second agency and we put the offer through second agent without viewing the flat that same evening, and we paid reservation fee. On the next day first agent contacted me and insisted that i must place the offer with her agency because she showed us the flat. I told first agent that I'm not interested to place the offer with them because ad was misrepresenting the property, and the agent replied me that this does not matter because I liked the flat. In the meantime first agent lied Landlord that we placed the official offer. And It looked like to the landlord that we placed offer at the same time through both agencies. And i had to call first agent and tell her that I'm officially retracting my offer even if I never gave formal offer, also first agent lied Landlord that I offered to pay 12 months upfront with higher price which put me in worse negotiating position for the flat. Then I had to place another offer, i offered still the lower price but I had to offer to pay full 12 months upfront because of the first agent. Landlord accepted my offer to pay 12 months upfront. And now first agent is telling me that she will put legal actions against me if she don't get her fees. I would like to know what are my rights? Because i did not sign anything with first agent. She misrepresent the ad on web site, if I saw proper pictures i would never contact her and i would go with second agent in the first place. She tried to increase my rent because she lied the Landlord, and because of her I had to pay 12 months upfront for the property.

I have had a long running issue with our letting agent regarding a bedroom being unusable due to condensation and black mould spores. Last week I received an email saying" Your landlord rung yesterday with regard to our email, and after a long discussion he has agreed to reduce your rent to £100 for this month and next ( April)." I acknowledged receipt, thanked them for the generous offer and paid the rent. This morning have another email saying "On behalf of **** I would like to offer an apology for any misunderstanding that her initial email regards the rent reduction has caused. She admits to her error using the word "to" rather than "by" yet I do not believe this warrants financial compensation. It is not down to us to offer you a reduction in the rent. We are a third party managing agent and any agreements are between you and the landlord. The landlord in this instance has offered you a reduction of £100pcm" Can they backtrack like this?

Hi, Now I and my friend are in trouble. Please help or give us advise. We signed a lodger agreement for a fixed term tenancy (14weeks) for a fully furnished room (all bills included) with 500GBP deposit, all paid before moving in. Unfortunately, we and LL agreed to end our agreement and let her chose the right time for us to move out. We stated in our email notice that we understand that she needs time to find new lodgers. She proposed us to leave 4 weeks later after we gave her an email notice. She gave us the rest of our 5 weeks rent that we already paid (1250 GBP) when we moved out but she didn't return our deposit back directly. After we moved out 24 days, we received a letter about costing damages to her house. (We signed in the inventory before moving in) It costs around 300 GBP for housing damages such as floor scratches. (I will not talk about this part because I don't have any evidence that I didn't make them even some of the damages are surely not my fault). So this means we should get 200GBP from 500 GBP back. But she also calculates about the laundry of towels and linens because of the lodger ending and also for losses concerning re-letting after we moved out till the new lodgers came for 1000 GBP. Totally she wants to charge us around 1300GBP which means even we couldn't get any deposit back, we need to pay more 800GBP. Can anyone help us? We would like to know does LL have the right to do so. (She has the right to keep all of our deposit because we're just lodgers, right?) We are about to leave this country within few weeks, but I just know this charging matters today. What will happen or what she can do if we won't pay her any more than the deposit she takes? Can we have a chance to get some part of our deposit back? Really appreciate for anyone who can give us advise. Thank you so much,

I have lurked for a while and found great advice in the past on other issues. I will try to keep this brief, with the key facts: 1. I signed a contract for a 12 month AST in Feb of this year. The contract clearly stated that the landlord has all the required consents to let the property 2. In May of this year I received a letter addressed to the tenant/occupier advising that there was a possession order on the property. 3. After further investigation I discovered that the landlord had not been paying their mortgage, and also that they had never received consent to let the property from the lender. Had I known this I would never have entered the agreement. 4. The agents were most unco-operative, unresponsive (calls were ignored, emails ignored) and eventually they just told me that they were cancelling their management of the property and to seek alternative accommodation. This has cost me a significant amount of money in terms of fees (to them initially, and to my next agent too), moving costs, additional expenses associated with the new property (I now have to pay for a car parking space for example) I have written a letter of claim to the agent, outlining the reason for the claim (breach of contract) and the amounts I was claiming from them. However, they have responded and said that it is between me and the landlord and I should pursue him/her. The problem with this is that the breach is in the actual contract itself which the agent drew up for us. Signed by myself and the agent. They obviously did not carry out adequate checks, and obviously did not ask to view the landlord's status in terms of permissions to let the property (the contract states that he/she has all the permissions) Please can you let me know your thoughts on the above and whether I should continue pursuing the agents, or is this something I shuld take up with the landlord (who may or may not be bankrupt due to the property being repossessed) ? Many thanks!

My daughter has moved into a private accommodation student house sharing with four others splitting the rent between the four. It now transpires that one of the four has a girlfriend who also lives there all the time (in a full time job) that wasn't mentioned at first and she is not on the lease. They have now asked my daughter never to mention this girl to the managing agents as she is not supposed to be there. She shares a room with her boyfriend and they pay half each of his rent. Our question is - can this void my daughter's lease as she is unhappy there - the girl in question is 'queen bee' calling the shots and generally bullying my daughter and she wants out but has signed a lease with me as guarantor. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi there I rent a commercial premises and recently my boiler has stopped working so I have no heating and hot water. I reported this to the landlord who sent a handyman to come and look at it - he did and said a registered gas safe plumber would need to come and look at it as he couldn't figure out the problem. He then told me that I would have to contract and pay said plumber as whilst they maintain boilers in the residential properties they have they don't in the commercial. I have checked over my lease and there is nothing in there about me being responsible for the boiler, in fact there is nothing in there regardin me being responsible for any fixtures and fittings except that I must decorate in the last year of my lease unless it has been done in the previous 12 months. I've had a plumber who didn't charge a call out fee come and look at it and he says the fault is actually electrical so I need an electrician but his opinion is that I am not responsible for paying for this as the boiler is not mine - he also said it's the landlords responsibility to ensure the boiler is correctly working for the tennant by getting an annual landlord certificate, which they are supposed to provide to me - they haven't. I've tried googling the subject and all I can seem to find relates to domestic property which says the landlord is responsible. Does anyone have any expererience or insight into the legalities of commercial lettings? Thanks in advance Andie x

Hi, I am hoping for some advice over a problem we had with a letting agency. We no longer rent this property as we were served notice to quit as the owner was selling it but we are still having problems with the agents. We first rented the property in august last year, after a week in it the burglar alarm began to go off continuously, i rang the letting agent to try and sort it out and they told us that they did not know the code so there was nothing they could do, we arranged for someone to come and disconnect the alarm at our cost, we paid for the disconnection, were advised that the whole system had been installed incorrectly and where given an estimate for the cost of repair, we forwarded both the invoice and the estimate on to the letting agency but in the twelve months we had the property it was never fixed. We claimed back the cost of the disconnection via a reduced rent payment the following month as agreed with the letting agency manager. ( will come back to this later) In november of last year the upstairs bathroom developed a leak. We notified the agency who initially ignored our requests. Only when the ceiling of the downstairs rear lounge had actually started to bulge did they send someone, and only after my wife had gone into the estate agents to tell them the ceiling was in danger of collapse did they actually send someone to do the repairs, they fixed the leak, but not the ceiling. Within a couple of weeks the leak started again so we informed them again to be told to contact the builder ourselves. I disconnected the water supply to the bathroom myself at this point then tried to contact the builder who did not respond to my messages. We again informed the estate agents who told us that the builder who carried out the initial repair had to be the one who came to fix it. He eventually conttacted me in early January to say that he had been in hospital but arranged a date to come a few days later to take a look at it and also a window in one of the childrens bedrooms which was side opening with a broken lock, in our view, dangerous. Also reported to the estate agents He never turned up so we again contacted the estate agents who said they would appoint someone else. After numerous phone calls and emails to them they eventually arranged for another builder to come, We had no contact details for him other than an email address which he never responded to so we failed to make any progress, even though we made the estate agents aware of the situation. At this point the estate agents stopped responding to our calls and messages. When we went into there offices the management team would send somebody out to us to tell us they were not available and they would get back to us which they never did. In june of this year we received a letter to vacate the property due to the owner wishing to sell it. We referred the estate agents back to our numerous messages about the state of the property and the fact that we had a bathroom and a bedroom that had been unusable for the majority of the tenancy but the estate agents have fobbed us off with excuse after excuse and basically stalled us until the tenancy was up. We issued a formal complaint to the estate agents two weeks before we were due to move out and were told that it was under investigation and we were to wait and hear back from them My wifes father was the guarantor for the tenancy and last week he received a 'final demand for a payment of £820, this was for the last months rent of £750 plus £70 for 'unauthorised deduction of rent'- this was the £70 mentioned earlier that was an agreed deduction for the cost of the alarm disconnection, which they had accepted and taken the invoice off us for. They told my wifes father that they had been trying to contact us on numerous occasions which is why they had issued the final demand. We had received no letters, phone calls or emails from them, we live in a small village and my wife actually owns and runs a shop directly opposite to the estate agents so as you can imagine, he wasn't to impressed about the fact that his credit rating could have been affected and we were neither about the fact that they had not only lied to him but pressured him into paying it. I decided to email them and ask about the situation with our deposit as it has now been 6 weeks since we vacated the property. I also asked for details about the Deposit protection scheme the deposit is with as i had previously requested this information only to be ignored. We have had no certificate issued to us to this date. We basically had a property were 20% was unusable (Toilet and Bedroom) which we were still charged full rent for, nothing ever got repaired, and we are still awaiting the return of our deposit. They have completely ignored every request we have sent them and we are not sure which way to go with this. I have looked into whether they are registered with any schemes where i could make a further complaint but they do not seem to be, and we also looked on the DPS websites and rang up to see if our deposit was protected with any of them, they all said that they could find no record. any advice would be greatly appreciated and apologies if this doesn't read very well!!

Hi all, Need some advice and guidance please, am in unknown waters here and not sure what to do. Im march of this year I moved into a 3 bedroom property with a lad I knew, we were friends but not really mates I guess you could say. The house was available for rent through a local Letting Agent, all above board no problems yet. Agreed rent was £600pcm and that alongside Council tax and utility bills was more than manageable. My Employer kindly lent me £1200 as a long term loan to cover the £600 bond and £600 1st months rent. My housemate paid back me back the rent over 3 months and this was fine. In June my housemate split from his long term girlfriend and started behaving oddly, so much so he was threatening to leave his job as he didnt like it. Luckily this didn't happen but this is where things began to go sour. One day in June his ex came over and demanded a sum of money from him, I dont know the amount but it was something that arose from their breakup, this meant he couldn't pay his half on June's rent straight away. I paid it in full and the bills and between then and the end of June he paid me back but had a little outstanding from the bills. In July he began talking about moving jobs, my opinion was that aslong as he paid his rent and bills then it was none of my business. July 15th I went on Holiday to Ibiza, 10 days later when I returned the house was trashed. He had punched the upstairs light switch and cracked it, punched through both the dining room and kitchen doors, his dog had pretty much run right through the greenhouse smashing some of the panels, the downstairs toilet handle was broken making it hard to use, the towel rail in the kitchen was snapped off and too make things just that little bit worse, had taken my sports car out, even though he had no insurance or license ( not even a provisional ) and crashed it!! causing upwards £2000 of damage Rumour was he was drunk but I couldn't prove it. He promised he would have it all fixed asap, that was until he told me he had resigned from his job and the job he was hoping to move into had collapsed. I paid the rent and all bills for July and August on the understanding he was looking for work, this never happened. On the 19th of August I left the house to go to work and found my housemate had pulled the beam clean off from the small porch outside the front of the house, apparently from doing pull-ups again drunk. I stopped talking to him at this point and decided I needed to get out of the house. On the 22nd of August I wrote a letter and took 15 photographs explaining pretty much what I have written above and also letting the Estate Agent know I was vacating the property on the 2nd of September, leaving my housemate there as he had no intention of leaving. Also that as the 6 month tennancy was up on the 11th of September I did not wish to renew. Upon hand delivering the letter, I was met by the manager of the Agents who read my letter and agreed it sounded a mess and had no issue I was moving. Within 30 minutes of leaving the Agents I had a call from them asking me for permission to do a visit, I agreed and so did my housemate. Roughly an hour later I got a call from the bloke who did the visit trying to quiz me about the damage, I explained it was all in the letter and he surely had seen it, he said he had and then stopped, finally he asked me if he could have somebody else come out on the 2nd of September to do a hand over.Which I agreed. On Wednesday 31st August I had to call the Agents as I received a letter requesting a time of 5:30 to do the handover, due to work commitments I requested to change the time to 6pm and also that I hadn't finished moving a few bits out of the house, this was agreed and I was somewhat pleased. The 2nd of September arrived and as of 5:30 I received a constant stream of phone calls from the owner of the Agents, I was driving at the time and could not answer, as I arrived at the property at 5:50 he called again, I answered only to be asked why I wasn't there at 5:30 and if he could be available then, why couldn't I, I explained I had called his office and arranged it, his response was 'oh, ok then' he wanted to come back to property there and then, I agreed. When I got in the house, my housemate was packing, strange I thought as that morning it seemed like he was intent on staying until the tennancy expired. Turns out he was sent a letter aswell asking him to hand over keys on the 2nd, but assumed it only applied to myself. I was upstairs when then owner of the Agents arrived, I didn't hear him knock but he shouted up the stairs and promptly came into my room where I was packing. His first question was ' Why has July's rent not been paid?' I showed him on my online banking it had been paid on the 1st of August and he apologised. He then told me it was unfair to place blame for all the damage on my housemate and I should pay for it. At this point I asked that my housemate should be present for this, however, he declined and said ' He doesn't seem the talkative type' he then said he wasn't happy with the damage and I agreed. This moved him onto the rent for August to which I said I need my housemate to give me what he owes, since your here why don't you ask him?, again this was refused. I informed him that my housemate was intent on staying in the property until atleast the following weekend, at this point he told me he had already spoken to my housemate and agreed to let him stay until the friday of that week. I told him I would be out of the property be 8pm I was met with no response. When asked about the outstanding bills, I explained I had them all upto date and that the Water and council tax were paid up until the 2nd and were now in my housemates name. He was happy with this. However, he said he couldnt do the hand over because of the mess, and asked me as I was working and getting a wage if I would pay it, as it was the responsible thing to do, I laughed and said no chance, I'm gone tonight mate, you know this. With that he said he would return on the friday and expect the house to be empty, odd I thought but nevermind. I had moved out of the house by 8pm, a friend told me my housemate had between the Tuesday and Friday repaired all the damage and had tried to claim the bond, but he was told no as the last months rent had not been paid. This morning I have had an email from the letting agent asking for the last months rent to be paid, I don't mean to sound like I am trying to get out of anything but I am so angry its beyond beleif, I was of the opinion that since I had left and my housemate remained there, it would now be his responsibility to square things up. But also that the bond which I can prove I provided would in any case cover the outstanding rent? The Letting agents are now panicking as they didnt ask me for a forwarding address, but I have covered all the bills so I'm not worried about them. What can I do? should I respond to the email asking about the rent and tell them to use the bond or... should I say it's my ex-housemates responsibility as he remained in the property after I had left? I hate to sound like im avoiding responsibility but I am not and I thought I had done the right thing by going to the letting agents with the photos and letter I wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hi, My boyfriend and I had decided to move in together and had found an ideal property for us and our 3 children that we have between us. Upon finding the property, we were very upfront with the lettings agent and disclosed to them that my boyfriend had been discharged from bankruptcy in July 2012. They relayed this to the landlord who said he was happy to still proceed with all the referencing checks necessary. When my boyfriends credit check came back, the letting agent informed us that there were some problems with it. We signed up and downloaded the credit report that they used and noticed things on there that due to his previous bankruptcy should not have been on the report. (They do not appear on more reputable credit checking agency reports). We informed the letting agent and proved to them that they should not have appeared. The letting agent knowingly passed on this false information to the landlord who has subsequently refused us the property (even though he knew about the bankruptcy prior to referencing) We have "failed" their credit checks and so our money goes to the landlord. Forgetting about the legalities off knowingly passing on false information that has been used discriminatorily, this whole situation has left us severely out of pocket hence hindering us from finding another property and quite frankly has upset me to no end. Does anyone have any advice on where we stand legally regarding getting our money back. The agents say we need to seek it from the credit check agency, but at the end of the day they employed that service.....if I find a hole in a jumper I take it back to the shop, not the factory it came from! Many thanks

Hi I would really appreciate your help I rent out a single bed flat and used a letting agency back in December. They found a tenant who paid 5 months in advance on an assured residential contract. I agreed as I was 8 months pregnant with a lot in mind I did not do appropriate checks. After the 5 months the tenant was late with the rent for two months and on the third month he is just not contactable. I asked the agency to go and have a look as I am not local and found that the property was empty. The property was filthy, some furniture was missing, keys and entrance fobs were not returned. there was no evidence of anyone being in the flat for a while. fridge empty, wardrobes empty. I have the following issues: - I cannot relet the property as the tenant has not officially abandoned the property - I cannot claim rent arrears from the deposit as the tenant in not contactable The letting agent is no willing to refund me part of their fees I also asked to see what reference checks they did and it was a joke. As a profession the tenant gave an address is berlin without a postcode. An their income was -£1. No next of keen, o work address nothing. If I was ever told that I would not let them in. Arent they also liable or at least obliged to return me their fees from when he left? Any advise? I am struggling financially, I am not a typical landlord but rent the house as I have moved away from London. Also my mortgage is quite high, it is a 400k property. help please

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this particular situation a close friend of mine is in with a frightful Trunchbull of a LA. She found a flat that she really liked, and was told that if she wanted to secure it, she would need to leave a holding deposit of £200 that would part pay for the actual deposit when she took up the tenancy. It was made clear in writing that if she pulled out of taking up the letting she would lose this holding deposit and if the landlord pulled out she would get it back, no problem she thought I definitely want this flat I'm not going to pull out. So she paid a holding deposit. At the next meeting the LA then produced the agreement that they insisted could not be changed (I became involved at this point to help her) when we tried to discuss the actual issues my friend was not comfortable with she was questioned as to if she actually wanted the let and if she wanted to pull out. and again refused to give any specific answer to our questions, continuing to question if she had the money to take up the agreement and asking if we wanted to pull out in a very forceful rude manner, the LA continuing to refuse to answer our questions or considering a modification of terms we were unhappy with. Our main concern was that as the contract states "at the conclusion of the tenancy the tenant will be responsible for having the property professionally cleaned including carpets and curtains. Such cleaning to be carried out by a professional company appointed by the Landlord or the Landlord's Agent, a receipt will be provided confirming this cleaning has been carried out." Eventually the LA did (claim to) contact the LL who refused to modify the above clause to along the lines of "leaving the property in a professional cleaned state" (words to that effect) Guide costs of cleaning from their contractors previous occupancies were refused to be provided by LA Pressured into not wanting to lose her holding deposit she accepted the terms as it was very close to the end of her other let. She is about to come to the end of her tenancy, and is concerned about the condition above might resulting in some large bill she has to pay that she feels she has little control over. Assume she will leave the property in a very clean state anyway (as she has always done with other lets) Can she defer this clause in the agreement which I feel she was initally misguided in to putting up collateral against which as a result forced her into accepting the contract. This woman has left me so vexed I'm inclined to report her and her companies behaviour to any governing body that will listen. It's a real shame things went this way, can anyone offer any advice as to how to approach the potential enforcement of what I feel are unfair terms?