Landlord seeking advice on termination of contract

[CraigWW]

Hi all

 

I'm looking for some advice here as I'm having no end of problems with my letting agent, Your Move. I have found their standard of service and communication to be appalling whilst being charged extortionate fees. They have carried out repairs without first obtaining quotes, not returned calls, not paid money into my account on the date that they assured me they would and generally been downright rude.

If my tenant only stays for six months I have calculated that I'll have paid them 60% of the rental income in fees, with their monthly management fee being 18.3%.

I had to chase them to obtain an invoice for a repair that was carried out on a 9 year old washing machine and this showed a part which cost £55. In correspondence with one of their managers he revealed the part actually cost £53.88 but they allowed their contractors to round this up as he had to source the part, this was on top of a £40 job charge which I assumed would include sourcing parts. I was also forwarded an email from the contractor which had been sent to Your Move in which he admitted that the machine was old and anything could go wrong at that age. Had I been contacted prior to the original repair I'd just have bought a newer second hand machine in the first place and saved myself some money.

On top of that I had to chase Your Move in order to have them chase the tenant for late paid rent despite me paying for a fully managed service. I was told they give the tenants 10 days after the rent due date before they even begin chasing it, which was never once explained to me prior to this incident.

I'm now past the point where there is less than two months left on the tenancy so I cannot serve notice, although with the exception of the late paid rent which was a simple oversight on the tenants part and rectified within an hour of it being brought to their attention, they have been good tenants and I do not want to evict them for no reason other than a poor standard of service from the letting agent.

My contract states that if I cancel the agreement with the tenants in place or move to another agent with the tenant still in place I'll owe Your Move one month's rent plus VAT. However there is a clause that states if either party breaches contract and a satisfactory resolution cannot be reached and the agent is at fault I can cancel my contract with Your Move without any penalty.

My question therefore is whether or not the above issues, which is just scraping the surface of a downright joke of a service, will constitute a breach of contract on Your Move's part? As far as I'm concerned I'm paying them for a service which I am not receiving and do not think they are complying with their duties as agents, I have sent a letter to their customer relations department and have been assured of a response sometime next week but any additional advice is very much appreciated. I realise I should never have signed a contract with such extortionate fees but I found myself with a vacant property at very short notice and very little time to get it all sorted out and stupidly assumed a company the size of Your Move would be professional and fee competitively.

[raydetinu]

Does sound a bad contract from your point of view; however have they breached any of the terms?

If you think they have then terminate it!

You might try posting on the landlord zone site for more advice and others to comment who have experience with your move.

[CraigWW]

Does sound a bad contract from your point of view; however have they breached any of the terms?

If you think they have then terminate it!

You might try posting on the landlord zone site for more advice and others to comment who have experience with your move.

 

Hi, thanks for your reply. Whether they have breached any terms is what I am currently trying to ascertain. There's a clause which states that if either party is in persistent breach of its obligations the agreement can be terminated and if it is the agent who is in breach there will be no charge to the landlord. Its now been nearly a month since I complained baout their lack of communication and time and time again they've failed to respond to emails or requests for call backs. I would consider it a basic obligation of the agent to keep the landlord informed of matters concerning their property so hoping I might have them on that one and I'm currently waiting on a response from their customer relations department.

[ericsbrother]

Are the breaches serious enough though? You will find that very difficult to prove. Get rid of them as soon as you can and dont forget to claim all of your costs against tax.

[CraigWW]

Are the breaches serious enough though? You will find that very difficult to prove. Get rid of them as soon as you can and dont forget to claim all of your costs against tax.

 

Yeah I know, thats the real problem, to compound matters I've just found out for the second month in a row the tenant has been late paying the rent and I again only found this out by chasing Your Move in order to have them chase the tenant which I'm pretty sure is what I'm paying them to do. I'm an accountant so been closely monitoring the costs, at this rate I'm going to have enough tax losses to carry forward against the next few years worth of rental income.