Me vs Landlord's Overdue Fees

[Holdred]

The backstory is as follows..

 

I was with a property rental company (very large >150 properties) for two years in two different properties. Being bad with money at the time (severe case of robbing Peter to pay Paul) my rent was often overdue.

 

Each time the rent was late they would send a bog standard letter out informing payment was required within seven days, a £20 fee has been added to the balance and interest at 5% above the base rate. A few days later they would send a very similar letter adding another £20.

 

Basically, up to £40 a month was racked up for a standard template letter sent out.

 

I don't rent from them anymore, so I'm in quite a good position to contest these fees, my estimation is that they could total up to £400.

 

The company do use quite a ruthless lawyer in the town I know, they filed for posession of the house for consistant late payments and this was the day I hadto move out anyway, talk about being pedantic, so I am expecting more correspondance than the banks.

 

I'm going to start the ball rolling with a DPA SAR, inparticular I need:

 

* Copy of the contracts I signed (they do state the fees)

* Copies of the arrears letters

* Breakdown of charges

* The information, notes etc..

 

Once I've got that I'll be in a position to see how things go.

 

I can't for any reason imagine how a company with over £1,000,000 turnover was affected by my late payments and it seems they are praying on the niaive as they primarily are a student landlord.

 

Have I missed anything that I'll need/

[Ed999]

The tenancy agreement is a contract, and you agreed its terms.

 

If the tenancy agreement contains a clause that entitles the landlord to charge a fee for late payment of rent, then you are liable for payment of a fee each time you were late paying the rent.

 

You can only challenge it if there was no such clause in the agreement, or if the clause did not specify the amount of the late payment fee. In the latter case the court will probably try to decide what amount would be reasonable.

[MrShed]

Ed thats not true. This would fall under "unfair penalty" area of law, and I see no reason why the OP would not be entitled to a refund under the same basis as bank charge refunds.

[GlasweJen]

Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999)

 

Come on guys, this is the whole basis of the bank claims. Unless the person making the charge can prove that it is a true reflection of the real cost of imposing the charge it becomes an unlawful penalty charge which can be disputed in court.

[Holdred]

Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999)

 

Come on guys, this is the whole basis of the bank claims. Unless the person making the charge can prove that it is a true reflection of the real cost of imposing the charge it becomes an unlawful penalty charge which can be disputed in court.

 

Exactly, which is why I don't feel £20 is a true reflection of at most 15 minutes work!

 

I can only but try, the worst that can happen is that I don't get anywhere.

[GlasweJen]

you might as well try it funhat, what have you got to lose? Remember to ask for a breakdown of the charges (I worked out that at £40 a pop some landlords take 7 hours to type a letter and still have money left over for stamp and envelope:o) and SAR them to get a list of all the charges, dates they were applied and reason for being charged.

[Chesterexpress]

I can't for any reason imagine how a company with over £1,000,000 turnover was affected by my late payments

 

And if everyone was late paying? Even if your late or don't pay, they are still liable to pay the rent to the landlord. Where do you think that money comes from?

 

I think £20 would be a fair amount to charge, someone has to manually check that the rent has been paid and then deal with it accordingly. For a small business this is time consuming and costly. Therefore I honestly can't see that you would win if you took this to court. In future I suggest paying your rent on time.

[MrShed]

Chester, I would love to see you justify this comment. The company will almost without doubt use a banking software that will notify should a payment not gone in by a certain time. If not, it is a 2 minute job. For a small business, it would cost MAYBE £5 covering all overheads for this payment to be late. In future I suggest staying off your high horse, or not contributing at all.

 

I dont advocate in any way people being late paying because they cant be bothered or whatever. However, this does not give companies/landlords, large or small, the right to use the situation to their advantage and make money from it - which this agent certainly is, along with most others.

[Chesterexpress]

Mrshed you obviously have no idea of the costs involved in running a small business. As stated previously £20 would be considered a fair charge by a court for this. Therefore I suggest you get some real life experience before telling people to get off a non existent high horse.

[MrShed]

No they wouldnt, hence the OFT stating it is unfair. Having run a small business before, and been in the finance department of another, I can assure you that a WELL RUN small business should not incur costs of more than £5 - and this includes interest, obviously depending upon amount and time overdue. If the business is wasting money and it costs £20, then that is not the tenants fault, but sloppy business practice.

 

Anyway, we are not here to talk about sloppy or otherwise business practices. Your "advice" is at best out of place and context, and at worst(and it is) incorrect - the OFT does NOT see these penalties as fair, and therefore the courts will not either. Having (touch wood) never been in severe financial difficulties, I am not about to judge the OP or anyone else for that matter for what has occurred due to financial difficulties, and I do not like to see anyone else get on their soap box and do the same. I agree companies should have some recompense, as it is not their fault that the payment is late. However, it is when companies try to take the ****, as this one is doing, both morally and legally, that makes my blood boil.

 

Before you respond Chester, may I suggest three things:

 

- Do not judge people without knowing their full circumstances.

- Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999) - read this before commenting on the legalities of the situation.

- Remember this is a CONSUMER forum.

 

I have no objection whatsoever to constructive criticism and debate on any forum, including this one. However, I take umbridge to a) someone stating opinion as fact b) someone stating one case as being the same for all cases and c) someone stating the wrong fact as fact, despite being proven otherwise.

 

Your knowledge of the law in this area is clearly sorely lacking - I suggest you brush up on it before providing other posters with incorrect advice in future.

[Chesterexpress]

shed, you talk a load of garbage. OFT agreed that credit card companies can only charge a maximum of £12 per default. With the systems these extremely large multi-national companies have at their disposal they can charge £12. Therefore a small business such as in this case have disproportionally higher costs, therefore £20 is totally acceptable and has been proved in more than one county court case. I speak from knowledge and fact. Unlike yourself who appears to think he knows everything, when in fact you know absolutely nothing about running a business as an owner.

[MrShed]

Show me the case law then. My running of my own company in the past must mean I know nothing about running a business - I'm sorry, you are of course right.

 

Anyway, I really cant be chewed to argue with a newbie on matters which have been shown in law to be the case, as well as common sense. Honestly, you are not arguing with me, but with the entire legal system, and the laws of economics. But thats fine, your perogative - but you can do it with yourself as far as I'm concerned. I've said my piece.

[GlasweJen]

Twenty quid for a letter? Let me see....

 

Dear Tenant,

I, your landlord or letting agent, have noticed that you have failed to pay rent on time this month. As a result you now have an outstanding balance of £1montsrent on your account, this money should be paid as soon as possible either by personal cheque in the post or by bringing the payment in cash or an accepted card to the office at Any Street. Should you wish to discuss this further do not hesitate to contact me at the Any Street office or by calling us on 01234567890.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Landlord or letting agent.

 

That's 98 words, i'll give you another 100 just in case. With your average secretary typing at over 60 words per minute (I'm at 78 and all i do is type essays) that's hardly £20 worth of work, unless they're chiseling it onto marble with gold plating and a personal delivery man to sing the message to the recipient at his convenience.

 

And chances are they use a template and just chuck in the name, date and amount before sticking it into a franked envelope. Jeez you landlords are as bad as the banks.

[GlasweJen]

oops double post.

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

shed, you talk a load of garbage. OFT agreed that credit card companies can only charge a maximum of £12 per default. With the systems these extremely large multi-national companies have at their disposal they can charge £12. Therefore a small business such as in this case have disproportionally higher costs, therefore £20 is totally acceptable and has been proved in more than one county court case. I speak from knowledge and fact. Unlike yourself who appears to think he knows everything, when in fact you know absolutely nothing about running a business as an owner.

 

They didn't agree that they could charge £12. £12 was the limit at which they would investigate.

 

Justify your £20 charge!

 

assuming it takes you an hour to write it (unconceivable in reality):

 

£9.25 for typing.

£.50(max) for printing

£.20 for the envelope.

£.32 for a stamp.

 

Total: £10.27.

 

Where in gods name did you get £20 from then???

[GlasweJen]

Chesterexpress case reference please? Look through the forum and you'll find quite a few people have got back these "reasonable" £20 charges (and some smaller) as they're against the 1999 law. sorry but that's fact.

[MrShed]

JJS - dont forget to add the 50p interest, and the 5 minutes it took an admin member of staff to realise that the payment hadnt gone through

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

JJS - dont forget to add the 50p interest, and the 5 minutes it took an admin member of staff to realise that the payment hadnt gone through

 

Doh. Too much excitement with the rugby

[Holdred]

Wow, two days away and all hell broke loose!

 

The letters were exactly word for word except different amounts. It's unconcievable that the process could cost £20, the company was very modern in it's dealings (tracking system for maintenance call outs, 24h out of office answering service) and always had the latest IT gizmo's in the office, so a form of mailmerge from a database to automate at least part of the process isn't too hard to imagine.

 

If they can provide evidence to breakdown this fee to the actual costs incurred to the business and no further, then I will be content to leave this matter alone.

[MrShed]

As a point of note, I have had a PM from Chester - I wont give the full details(fairly derogatory towards me!) but he has stated among other things that he was a claimant in such a case and the court has backed up the position of the company making these charges.

 

To which I respond - the court has made an error. They have no right to do so, as it is a flagrant breach of the Unfair Terms regulations, mentioned several times above. This debate can go on and on as far as I am concerned - but there can be no question that the terms have been declared unfair IN LAW, therefore no point in the debate.

[Chesterexpress]

Shed the charges or terms have not been declared unfair. Excessive amounts yes, but reasonable amounts are lawful. I really don't know where you get your information from, however if you can prove what you say then please post a link to it for all to see.

[Holdred]

I suppose a lot of what led to the decision in Chester's case could be down to preparation, validity of argument, court documents etc so that's not to say that it's set in stone that such charges are lawful, just on the basis that the judge made his decision on both opinions presented

[GlasweJen]

oh aye so what was the case reference then Chester? You'll be interested to know that when I threatened my own landlord with court for a £15 letter he admitted that it only cost him less than £3 to generate a letter and send it recorded post so could you please provide your breakdown for us to view to see where these reasonable expenses come from like any court in the land would ask you to do? Or would that cost you £50 worth of time?

 

Oh and by the way the shed isn't the only one on this thread so why not reply to us all?

[demon_x_slash]

There's information on unlawful penalties all over this site, funnily enough.

 

In civil law, when a breach of contract occurs, the injured party is only able to charge a genuine pre-estimate of costs incurred due to said breach. If the late payment necessitated a letter (which it wouldn't in the OP's case, as they had informed the LL that the payment would be late), then the LL would only be able to charge the cost of materials, composition and the posting of said letter, not an arbitrary amount plucked from the sky. This is true of all civil and consumer contracts, as contractual obligations and agreements do not supercede the Law.

 

As for the late payment incurring a penalty charge to the LL's bank account, IMHO they should be pointed in the direction of this and other consumer sites, and their eyes opened to the fact that the banks are acting unlawfully in applying a charge in the first place.

[Chesterexpress]

oh aye so what was the case reference then Chester?

 

If you were as clever as you think you are, you would know that county court cases do not set precedent. However I can assure you that I have been invovled in a number of these cases and have won them all. As said it all depends on the charges being fair and reasonable.