Rental Real Estate Laws – Holding Fees And Rent?
16. Feb, 2010 
5 Comments
Towards the end of July I found a house for me and 2 friends to live in for this coming year. We wanted to move in on 20th August, as the boys were in Brazil until then, but 2 of us started work on 29th August. The estate agents said that as we wanted to move in so late, the landlord would pass over us and take other tenants as he would get more rent. We agreed that if we could move in on 20th, we would be willing to pay rent for the whole of August. We paid the full months rent and I then went on holiday for 2 weeks and told the estate agents to call if they had a problem. Despite me saying this and even e-mailing from my holiday to check everything was ok, they waited until I got back, one week before we wanted to move in to tell me one of the boy’s ID had never arrived which would delay our entry to the property. We got the ID sent across and all of our references were approved by the 18th. I then phoned the estate agents every day to try and find out what was going on and even came up to Manchester and slept on a friends floor for a week as I thought going in to the estate agents might have more of an effect. Despite all this, they only let us into the property on 28th August. This was because the gas and electricity checks hadn’t be done, which is fair enough as it’s illegal for us to move in earlier. We said we wanted a refund for some if not all of August’s rent but they refused to give us the landlord’s number as we had not signed the contract yet. We are still in the house without having signed a contract. I finally got to speak to the landlord yesterday who said the estate agent had told him we didn’t want to move in till 1st September and that they were worried we might not want to despite my numerous phone calls and he should consider putting the house back on the market. We haven’t had anything signed at all apart from a receipt from the estate agents saying they’d accepted the cheques on his behalf. As far as we were concerned, the holding fee was for 3 weeks rent and the rest of the money paid was supposed to be actual rent, clearly it hasn’t worked out like this. Just wondering if anyone knows if we have any legal claim to some sort of refund, either from the landlord or the estate agents?
sue your RE agent for violation of fiduciary duty, seriously!
Immediately, call the agent’s broker and meet him-her.
SOMEthing is not right. IT could be you;re presuming things but
I think since more than 2 things were not done according to your
requests, the agent was “lollygagging.” [goofing around.]
as you have not signed a contract – i don’t think you can but if the estate agent you dealt with will confirm the arrangement you may be able to make a claim through small claims court on the basis of breach of a verbal contract
You need to have words with a partner in the Letting Agent’s firm (the organ grinder not his monkey). Explain the situation and if no joy mention Trading Standards and the Small Claims Court.
Some rental agents handle 200 properties by themself. They figure they need that many in order to make a good living. When things are going well, that is fine. When there is a problem , it is almost impossible to reach that agent. When you do reach her, you can’t rely on any verbal promises because her phone rings 300 times a day. Which isn’t fair to you.
You deserve a refund.
Regardless of where you are, home or holiday. If you have paid rent from 1 August then you should be entitled to move in then on the signing of the tenancy, as this has not been done, but you have moved in without a contract, don’t worry, you have a tenancy by paying rent and the agent accepting it.
The agent should be answering questions from the landlord, as they are out of order. If the agent/landlord is not happy with a rental refund, then leave it until your vacate and deduct that from the final months rent.