I want to find out what I can do next.

I've just finished a tenancy with a terrible letting agents. Durring the year with them, we had no toilet for 3 months, poor repairs and a number of other issues. We complained but nothing was ever done. When leaving the flat, we refused to pay their check-out fee, because of their poor service and because they had not completed an inventory at the start. They then refused to release the rest of our deposit (over £1000) until we paid what they wanted. I would like to take them to court, to hold them accountable for their actions. I'm not even that concerned with money - I'm mainly angry that we had no working toilet for months, and that they never did anything about it. And also that they would have tried to hold our whole deposit as ransom. We have stack of letters that we wrote to them complaining, and even emails from the landlord complaining about them. They have been rude, nasty, and simply discusting to deal with.

What can I do? I want to take them to court... or to have some action taken against them. They shouldn't be able to get away with how they have acted.

Many thanks

Just an extra note - I can't stress how rude, and nasty these people were. They never returned calls, or kept appointments. But they were just lazy and annoying until the end of the year and we refused to pay some money to them and started to really complain - then they turned... well not even like a business... it was more like talking to 15-20 year threatening children. At the end of the year the landlord was going to allow us to leave them and deal with him directly because of their poor service. In the end, we had to move back north, so left the whole flat. But, we have many, many letters of complaints, from us and the landlord to them. I even have them addmiting that they would hold the whole deposit to until we paid what they wanted, in a ransom sort of way.

The landlord is the one who chooses to pay the agent so ultimately it's the landlord's responsibility if your toilet did not work. If the landlord is useless, or ineffectual in the face of his agent's poor performance then he needs to be told not to use this agent again. If he simply doesn't want to get involved then he is culpable to his agent's failures.

In the landlords defence, he was in Australia - that why he got this letting agent - to run things. One of his emails to them that he added us in to was him complaining that they were supposed to be sorting things out for him.

But the point is, he might have been a little slow or stupid to use them - they however were rude, nasty and negligent. I want to hold the letting agents to account for how they acted - mainly with the toilet.

How would I take them to court?

I am not a lawyer, but I think you cannot take the agent to court because you have no contract with them.

Effectively you have a contract with your landlord, so you would take him to court. If that annoys him enough he will take his agent to court to get compensation for their ineptness.

They are now telling us that they will hold our deposit untill we retract all our complants against them and agree that we will not take them to court... Can they do this?

No they cannot. They hold the deposit on behalf of the landlord. The landlord can and should instruct them to release the deposit.

If they do not do so then the landlord should repay the deposit to you and then he should sue the agent for the money. The landlord should be taking responsibility for getting you in this mess.

Who have you complained to that they want you to retract your complaints from? I guess you have not got this in writing?!

I've not yet asked, is your deposit protected? And if so, by which scheme? Can you get the scheme involved?

It's now taken a sick, almost sinister turn. The manager in charge of the agents has told my partner, that unless we give a full appology, retract all complaints, and write and sign that we intend no legal action, then they will not allow the money to be return and will try to dispute the FULL amount. £1250! When we were the ones to complain in the first place!

The money is with the DPS. They have just said that the way the agents are acting is not correct and we should take them to court. The thing is, we need the money back sooner rather than later - It's over £1000...

If we do send a mail saying these things, can we still take them to court at a later date? For the toilet issues, and the fact that they wouldn't return the money? I have emails of all their demands and replies.

We haven't complained to anyone apart from them so far.

The landlord has mailed me and said he's asked them to return the deposit - In fact he claims they told him they were not going to hold on it...

Heels appear well & truly dug in. Don't expect deposit back in near future.

So Letter before Action to both LL (UK address, also email copy out of courtesy) & LA giving 14 days from date of letter for return of deposit.

Initiate County Court action against both LL & LA, via MCOL (online) for return of full deposit, citing repair delays.

If local press heard facts of the case & ran a story, not good for local rep of LA.

I don't know what procedures DPS have, but they ought to understand that the agency is the agency of the landlord, and that therefore the landlord should be entitled to release the deposit himself. So I'd be asking DPS if they would allow that.

Alternatively, the landlord can pay you directly and you can release the deposit to the agency who would then have to give the money to the landlord.

Can you get the landlord to email the agency and to copy you in, demanding release of the deposit?