"Potential" dodgy agents

[wccheng]

I say "potential" because the incident is still in progress and see how they treat me at the end.

 

In brief, I'm looking for a 1 bed flat to rent. When the agent shown me around I asked how much the administration fee would be. she told me there won't be administration fee as it would be included in my deposit/rent. I thought it may be a kind of agreement between the agent and landlord that all admin fee are charged in this way. Sounds not common I ask the agent again is there not a separate charge as "administration fee" on me during the whole rental process and she said "no there's not". at the end i find one flat quite good and pay the holding deposit £200 (1 week rent) and they start doing the referencing and things. later i receive an invoice for my deposit which i have to paid before i get the keys and i've found that there's £230 administration fee on that invoice. Now i'm asking them about that and waiting their reply.

 

im preparing for the worst that they deny they've told me that there's no admin fee and refuse to give me back my holding deposit. In this case I will probably looking for legal action to claim my money (£200 holding deposit) back, based on the ground that the agent give me inaccurate information about the rental cost. £230 is not a huge amount of money but i just can't accepted being cheated.

 

any suggestion?

Edited July 15, 2009 by wccheng

[Emma1973]

she told me there won't be administration fee as it would be included in my deposit/rent.

 

 

i receive an invoice for my deposit which i have to paid before i get the keys and i've found that there's £230 administration fee on that invoice

 

Isnt that whats happened? Or is there a seperate invoice?

[wccheng]

Isnt that whats happened? Or is there a seperate invoice?

 

 

sorry my previous wording may be a bit confusing

i receive an invoice, which all charge/fee/payment that I have to settle before they give me the keys are listed. these included the first month rent, 6-week rent as deposit, and the admin fee. but what the agent told me before is there's no separate admin fee

Edited July 15, 2009 by wccheng

[wccheng]

update

 

they email me and say the agent who showed me the flat and told me there's no admin fee last week is not in the office and can't clarify the issue with her but she will be back tomorrow.

 

This is sort of ridiculous if you really want to contact someone why not calling her mobile? I have the agent number and I'm thinking should I call her and say "hey talk to your boss about my administration fee"?

 

and at the same time they urged me to fill in the online referencing form, which I refuse to because if they haven't clarify me on the admin fee, I will not disclose my information.

[bedlington83]

Why not contact the landlord directly? My landlord was shocked when he found out that the agent was charging me as well as him

[wccheng]

Why not contact the landlord directly? My landlord was shocked when he found out that the agent was charging me as well as him

 

I don't have the landlord detail. but today I get their call and they say it's their mistake and my admin fee can be waived. surprisingly smooth as I don't have record of the conversation and I thought they will argue with me that that is not what they mean and I should pay the admin fee. but I'm still cautious as this is a verbal notice (waive my admin fee) again I don't know what will turn up at the end.

 

now i'm thinking whether to take that flat. I know I will lost my holding deposit if i pull out now but the thing is I find another one which is cheaper in rent and the landlord (private LL not through agent) sounds more reliable. anyway this is another story...

 

oh i can share with you one more thing how unprofessional the agent is. I asked what's the council tax band of the flat. she asked whether my partner and me are student or not. I work full time and my partner is a full time student and she taught me that we could escape the council tax by claiming my partner the only tenant in the flat to the council! I know this is unlawful and I have prepared to pay the council tax anyway (i'll apply the 25% discount of course). But still shocking when I heard that from the agent.

Edited July 16, 2009 by wccheng