Please can anyone help me with a Letting problem?

[stu007]

Hold on the Letting Agent has given there 'Final Response' to the OPs complaint about the Holding Deposit in there response as it specifically states 'Final Response'.

 

So the OP doesn't need to wait the 8 weeks to proceed to the Property Ombudsman: https://www.tpos.co.uk/

 

What I would suggest is to get yourself writing out a Subject Access Request (SAR) simply asking for 'ALL DATA'  and send it to the Letting Agent. (note a SAR is now free due to the GDPR which is now part of the DPA 2018)

 

Remember to tell the other students to send there own SAR to them as well

 

1. You could go direct and complain to the Property Ombudsman.

 

or

 

2. Send the SAR (they have 30 calendar days) first to see if they comply and what info they send you then you use all this then proceed to the Property Ombudsman

 

 

 

 

[Bean192]

Thanks @stu007, will arrange for these to be sent.  @king12345 Can I ask why you think the Property Ombusman if they are pro the Estate Agent as seems to think they are and a waste of time?

Edited August 30, 2019 by Bean192
wrong tags

[king12345]

Had many runnings with estate agents before I decided to be my own estate agent.

All cases brought to ombudsman resulted in "yes, they've done wrong and they've lied, this should be a learning point" no compensation or even refund awarded.

Same cases and 2 more brought to county court were immediately closed when paperwork hit their desk.

That's why i think you should avoid the ombudsman. 

And by the way, the ombudsman survives from fees paid by estate agents, so effectively the ombudsman is their employees.

[45002]

1 hour ago, king12345 said:

Had many runnings with estate agents before I decided to be my own estate agent.

 

Thank you, that explains a few things !

[king12345]

2 hours ago, 45002 said:

 

Thank you, that explains a few things !

Explains what things???

[Bean192]

Thanks @king12345, so this is a Small Claims Court (MCOL) route then?

Edited August 31, 2019 by Bean192

[dx100uk]

monetary value of your claim dictates that

[king12345]

Yes, it will surely be under 10k i suppose

[London1971]

On 30/08/2019 at 01:03, stu007 said:

Hold on the Letting Agent has given there ' Final Response' to the OPs complaint about the Holding Deposit in there response as it specifically states ' Final Response'.

 

So the OP doesn't need to wait the 8 weeks to proceed to the Property Ombudsman: https://www.tpos.co.uk/

 

What I would suggest is to get yourself writing out a Subject Access Request ( SAR) simply asking for 'ALL DATA'  and send it to the Letting Agent. (note a SAR is now free due to the GDPR which is now part of the DPA 2018)

 

Remember to tell the other students to send there own SAR to them as well

 

1. You could go direct and complain to the Property Ombudsman.

 

or

 

2. Send the SAR (they have 30 calendar days) first to see if they comply and what info they send you then you use all this then proceed to the Property Ombudsman

 

 

 

On 30/08/2019 at 01:03, stu007 said:

 

 

Superb advice,

 

I won my battle with letting agent fees using a simple GDPR, SAR request. He can bluster about only talking to lawyers all he wants, but he cannot ignore an SAR request without being in breach of GDPR regulations which can carry a fine big enough to shut his company down and bankrupt him. 

 

SAR is a tool that gives you complete transparency, into how any company handles your information, including emails, screenshots, conversations about you. Often it's all you need for evidence if it needs to go to court, or as in my case they backed down. I had them bang to rights!

 

 

[stu007]

Hi

 

I have to disagree with @king12345 as you are going from your own experiences again.

 

When the OP has the new Tenants Fee Act 2019 that came into force on 1st June 2019 to assist them as the Letting Agent to date has refused to clarify which Parts of that Act they are relying on to refuse to return the Holding Deposit.

 

I fully stand by my post#27

 

Yes the OP my decide to go down the court route but that is there decision after getting good informed advice.

 

[king12345]

I do speak for experience and the property ombudsman in my experience is a waste of time.

Then if you would like to delight us with your personal experience with the ombudsman,  maybe I can appreciate that I've just been unlucky.

However,  reading the many ombudsman threads here on cag, I tempt to believe that I'm not alone in distrusting them.

[stu007]

King the last thing I am going to say as this is this OPs Thread,

 

Was your experience specifically to do with Holding Deposits and was the Tenant Fees Act 2019 that came into Force 1st June 2019 in Force at the time of your experiences?

 

You are aware that if you Do Not Accept The Public Ombudsman's Final Decision you can proceed to Court (but so can the letting agent)

 

https://www.tpos.co.uk/our-final-decision-and-compensation

 

Quote

What if I don’t agree with the final decision?

If you don’t agree with the final decision, you cannot appeal against it, as you would have already had the chance to represent when you received the proposed decision, but you can take your complaint to court or find another organisation who may be able to help. The agent can also take you to court to recover any fees you haven’t paid.

 

 

[king12345]

Not specifically,  it was earlier, but when the ombudsman agrees that the letting agent have lied and this should be a learning point rather than cause for refund, then you tempt to lose faith in them, don't you?

[Bean192]

@stu007 @BankFodder please can you check the Letter of Claim below before we send this to the Letting Agent

 

Address

This Letter is on behalf of the following individuals;

Names of people involved in paying Holding Deposit

Address of Letting Agent

3 September 2019

 

Letter before Court Claim

 

Dear Sir

Re: Address of Property

 

Following our communication on email with reference to the Lease of the above Property this letter explains our situation and why we were left with no choice but to pull out of the Let and why we are entitled to a full refund.

We are once again requesting a full refund of the Holding Deposit which we paid you in good faith on the 2^nd August 2019 of £705. This was paid to you because you agreed to a 6 month break clause in our Lease – something which was very important to us.

 

We have attached a copy of your correspondence where you agreed to this 6 month break clause

We would like a reply as soon as possible so that we know you have received this letter.

If you don't agree to the refund, could you please then send us a detailed response saying why you don't agree.

 

If we do not receive a satisfactory response from you within 30 days of the date of this letter, we intend to issue proceedings against you in the County Court without further notice.

This may increase your liability for costs.

 

We refer you to the Practice Direction on pre-action conduct under the Civil Procedure Rules, and in particular to paragraph 13-16 which sets out the sanctions the court may impose if you fail to comply with the Practice Direction.

 

We look forward to your acknowledgement.

Yours faithfully

[AndyOrch]

Yes thats fine...did you send a SAR ?   Are you not going to wait for a response before issuing the LOC ?

 

Andy

[Bean192]

Please can you tell me how long i should allow for a response to the SAR?

[BankFodder]

30 days

[stu007]

I agree a SAR response is 30 Calendar Days, note that is from the Company/Business   receiving/acknowledging your request. 

 

I also agree that you should wait before sending the LBA if you are sending off a SAR to them as it would be better to wait for their response so you can read for yourself what data they hold on you and if it matches what has been discussed and agreed. 

[Bean192]

Just received this email today following the SAR request I sent to the Letting Agent.

Please can you advise our next move? Is it small claims court now?

 

Dear xxx,

In response to your letter, I would like to inform you that we do not hold any of your personal information.

We are a small company and data collected is only handled by 1 internal employee who conducts the reference checks.

Once the reference check has been completed, the documents are destroyed by deleting the data. Therefore, we cannot provide you with any of your personal data as it has been deleted and we no longer hold any of your personal information.

In your situation as soon as you pulled out of the deal, your information was deleted and was not shared with any external organisations.

The nature of renting a property requires the applicant to go through a reference check which you did and by doing so you sent us the required documents. The information which we had was sent to us by yourself, for the purpose of conducting a reference check. We do not need to hold personal data on applicants who do not move into a property. Once you pulled out of the deal your data was deleted.

We do not share any personal data with third parties or place prospective tenants on any list.

Cool Cribs Estate agents is registered with the ICO and has a certificate of registration.

Please do let us know if you need anything else.

Regards,

[BazzaS]

Well, if they don't have any of your data, they'll find it hard to provide any evidence (beyond personal recollection) to dispute your statement / version of events .......

 

If they do say "well, we remember", you can point out that your recollection is likely to be more reliable than theirs : you've only had to deal with one (or a few) agencies, and they'll have dealt with lots of clients ....

 

If they then suddenly "find" lots of documents, you can show that their systems aren't reliable, as they said they had all been destroyed when you SAR'd them!

[Orchid47]

@BankFodder @stu007 just wondered what you think are next steps

 

Letting agent should have emails of conversations, we certainly do

 

 

[Bean192]

@BankFodder @stu007  just wondered what you think are next steps

 

Letting agent should have emails of conversations, we certainly do

[ericsbrother]

destroying your personal data is also a breach of the GDPR as the reality si that the dats wont be so old as to not need referring to again. As there is a propnel their system clearly isnt adequate to be able to treat you fairly

[PIXeL_92]

@Bean192 may be worth leaving an honest review once this is all sorted;

 

https://www.allagents.co.uk/coolcribscouk/

[dx100uk]

hope that's not an advert touting for business pixel?

 

dx