Chapter and Verse

[Cymraeg]

I've been reading thru a lot of the 'deposit disputes' threads as i'm going thru similar myself at the moment. However , does anyone know what law , chapter or verse says that you sue the landlord not his/her agent ?

I've already sent a letter giving my ex landlord a time scale , but I was just curious as to where all this lies on the statute books .

[demon_x_slash]

No, it is because your contract itself, the tenancy agreement, is with the landlord. The agents are 'merely' the paperwork shufflers who photocopy the contract and bring you two together to sign it. Even though their inflated 'admin' fees would make you think otherwise. I think that the only time you can sue the agent in a dispute instead of the landlord is where the landlord is not contactable/overseas.

If I'm wrong someone'll be along to correct me, but I think that's it.

[barracad]

It's not through a specific piece of legislation, rather the lack of it - you have no contract with the agent and therefore no basis whatsoever to take action against them, so it must be the landlord who you make a claim against.

[blacksheep1979]

You can't sue the agents if the contract is with the landlord even if you can't find the landlord. You could maybe sue them if they didn't do something that was meant to be done by them for their agency fees, but can't think of anything that would be - maybe if they charged for an inventory to be done and never did?

[demon_x_slash]

D'oh! I was thinking of serving papers where they are still acting as agent but the landlord is not traceable/overseas. Would've corrected myself next post

Hah, I'd be pleased as punch to be able to sue our agents, for anything, just to see the smug look wiped off that manager's face - my landlord is a gem but the agents can be a nightmare. They tried to charge us £70 'admin' for accepting the renewal of our tenancy agreement a few months ago. £70 for photocopying our original agreement and putting it in a filing cabinet? What are they working for, £300ph? They were overly unctuous to my partner when we were originally arranging the tenancy - because he worked full-time - and treated me like an eleven year old moron - because I am a university student. Despite the fact that I was the one arranging everything, sorting through viewings and inventories and fee sheets, dealing with their suited monkeys, and not my partner...

It's almost funny, that; before they knew that my partner was employed full time, in quite a good job, all the flats they took me 'round were dingy cesspits with - literally - holes in the floor and chicken bones floating in last night's dirty washing-up water. Oh, what, your partner works full time? Cha-ching! Suddenly we get neutral paint on the walls of the flats, and beige carpets, and allocated parking...

Did it irritate me? No. Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?

Rant over

[Nightmare4banks]

Hi all!

My view of this topic is as follows:

1.The agent CAN be sued under certain circumstances i.e. if he/she assualted the tenant or mispresented in order to obtain a financial gain in which the landlord was totally unaware.A good example would be an agent that charged a tenant some money for whatever reason with the tenant's understanding that this money would be passed on to the landlord but in fact it is pocketed by the agent and following that the tenant found out.
In this case,it is a good idea to approach the landlord in the first instance.Any good landlord would probably terminate a bad agent that would affect the reputation.

2.An agent that is managing a property for an overseas landlord can be sued because:

a.the agent is actually receiving the rent and the landlord is dutybound to have an agent in place should there potentially be any problem/repairs needed on the property in absentia.

b.it is not possible to issue a summons on a landlord based overseas.

c.in this case the agent should probably have been the "go ahead" to respond in these sort of situations or perhaps not.However,this is more to do with the agreement between the agent and the landlord rather than the tenant's legal position which would remain of course unchanged.


Anyway,this is my 2p's worth!

[Cymraeg]

blacksheep1979You can't sue the agents if the contract is with the landlord

I would have thought this may have been contract law.

barracadIt's not through a specific piece of legislation, rather the lack of it

I thought it would have been covered in either Lanlord and Tenant or Housing Act .

Thanks for youre replies tho' . I'm waiting for the time scale to run out as I'm sure the landlord won't do anything . He put the property back on the market immediately . We've had someone contact us (a friend) enquiring about it so we put them right off . The property is almost commdemable (?).

We're in a far better place now. If he just returned what's owing to us I could wipe my hands clean off him totally and put it all down to experience.

Thanks for your input everyone.

Nadolig Llawen.