Hi folks OK, here is the scenario: Saw a flat, the next day called agent to say I liked it.They asked for a holding deposit of nearly £500, which I paid. After paying this holding deposit, they sent me the next day information about references they would require and stated the terms of the holding deposit. That being, if I failed the credit check, they would keep £100 but return rest. If the landlord pulled out, they would return all of it. If I pulled out, I would lose it all. They also included a credit check form to fill in for a company called MARAS - I have never read such an invasive credit check form. It asks for my address for the last 3 YEARS and my employment for the last 3 YEARS! Ridiculous but I filled it in anyway as best I could. Once they realized I was a freelancer, they asked for a guarantor. I refused as (i) I don't have anyone who could act as one (ii) I am 36 and work full-time (permalance) so why should I still need a guarantor in life? My credit history is very good and I've never missed a rent payment in years, actually, ever! They said fine. The landlord's rep said that he wanted instead of 6 weeks rent as deposit, he wanted 2 months. I begrudgingly agreed as it's a lot of money to have sat in someone else's bank account earning them interest, not me. After much reference checking hell and back and forth, they finally agreed to let me the place under these new terms. So then, they finally sent me through the contract. I noticed that the 6 month break clause section was not filled in with the dates of the earliest I could give notice so I asked them to correct this and a few other things I did not agree with. They made all the changes but completely removed the break clause section. When I said I needed it back in, the letting agent said it was a mistake he sent that contract as that was a template for someone who has been there over 1 year already and that there was in fact, no break clause of any kind for the first year. For me, this completely changes the commitment I am making. I always assumed there would be a break clause as there has always been one in every contract I've signed over the last 15 years of renting. It is not definite I would exercise the break option but I want it in there as I might want to go abroad in maybe 8-12 months time, or even just move if I don't like living at this place (first time living alone in a studio flat) What can I do? I have decided not to take the place as it's too much money and commitment for a whole year. So much could change in that time. Can I get my holding deposit back? Yes it is now me telling them I don't want it under those conditions but I didn't find out until the day before I was supposed to move in, i.e. when I finally got to see the contract T&Cs. Also, the terms of how the holding deposit would be handled were not sent to me until AFTER I had paid it. This seems a little tricksy on the part of the letting agent. Advise please! Thanks.

I have claimed against a property agent for return of my 'non refundable' holding deposit in the small claims court. After mediation, which has failed, I have understood that the agent has three things points that he will make: 1. that I knew it was a non-refundable deposit 2. that he took the property off the market and 'lost' potential clients 3. that when he subsequently let it he had to accept £20 a week less in rent. My points against these are: 1. I paid the deposit by phone, he emailed the receipt which revealed it was non-refundable if I did not take up the tenancy, but refundable (minus admin costs of £100) if he didn't accept me as a tenant. A biased, one-sided contract 2. From the time I paid the deposit, till the time I told him I would have to pull out he lost two business hours…which could not have possibly cost him £500. 3. That he later let it for £20 a week less is nothing to do with me, perhaps it was overpriced and I should have bargained. I have looked at LandlordZone and OFT Guidelines on Pre-contract deposits. I don't think I have a problem with points 1 and 2, but they don't seem to have anything on point 3. Any help would be much appreciated!

Hi me and 2 friends put a holding deposit down on a property last week on a verbally agreed monthly rent. Now we are completely at fault, as one of us went down to pay the holding fee and sign the paperwork. What she did not notice was the monthly rent amount which differed to what was agreed when we were speaking to the estate agent. We are now pulling out of this offer, as the monthly rent is unaffordable, and we completely accept that we are liable to lose the £500 fee as was stipulated to us when we agreed to pay it. Now the agent is trying to charge an extra £500 which crucially it DOES state in the paperwork my friend signed, however the agent made no mention of that when we agreed the fee. A solicitor friend says we should just accept the loss of th initial £500 and walk away, but they are saying they will come for the extra £500 and they'll win. I want to trust this solicitor as he does specialise in property (and has seen the paperwork and says it's not clear enough - he is willing to write letters), but would appreciate some extra advice as it seems we may have signed ourselves into a hole!

Hi me and 2 friends put a holding deposit down on a property last week on a verbally agreed monthly rent. Now we are completely at fault, as one of us went down to pay the holding fee and sign the paperwork. What she did not notice was the monthly rent amount which differed to what was agreed when we were speaking to the estate agent. We are now pulling out of this offer, as the monthly rent is unaffordable, and we completely accept that we are liable to lose the £500 fee as was stipulated to us when we agreed to pay it. Now the agent is trying to charge an extra £500 which crucially it DOES state in the paperwork my friend signed, however the agent made no mention of that when we agreed the fee. A solicitor friend says we should just accept the loss of th initial £500 and walk away, but they are saying they will come for the extra £500 and they'll win. I want to trust this solicitor as he does specialise in property (and has seen the paperwork and says it's not clear enough - he is willing to write letters), but would appreciate some extra advice as it seems we may have signed ourselves into a hole!

I would really like some help, my friends and I, 4 of us, wanted to rent a 4 bedroom flat. It was advertised for professionals only, but I thought i would ring anyway as we are on placement this year and so have all been working, and will be fourth year students, so sensible and hard-working! The letting agent said that this would be fine. One of us went to see the property and liked it, so I paid a 250 GBP holding fee, and a 150 GBP admin fee. The letting agent told us not to tell the landlady we were students and i originally filled out the tenancy application form staying i was a student and he sent it to me again and told me to say i was working, I am working at present so put my details down, but informed him that I would be a student next year, he told us all not to tell the landlady this. The tenant who visited the property was told by the landlady she would like to meet all of us before we move in, our move in date we were told would be 20th Aug, which was later moved back as tenants do not move out until the beginning of September. When i returned from holiday i contacted the landlord to meet the landlady but he said we all had to meet her at the same time. We all live quite far apart and so it was hard to sort this, but we booked days off work to meet her the follwing Tuesday. On the Tuesday the landlady had gone abroad and was uncontactable, but had given the flat to other people. The letting agent is saying we didnt mean her soon enough, however neither verbally or written was there ever a set time we had to meet the landlady in, just before we moved in, which is still one month away! We have accepted the fact that we have lost the property and now have no where to live even though we go to uni in one month, and some of us have resit exams in two weeks time and nowhere to stay, but he now has sent details of another flat which we are not interested in, and dont want to go with him as he seems so unreliable!! However he has said he will refund the admin fees but not the holding fee, he does not have the property ombudsman symbol and so I do not know what step to take next? Any any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Hello all, I went to view a residential property yesterday to let. Whilst at the property the agent showing me around stated that the total fees that would be charged would be around £300 to £350. She did not give me anything in writing. I really liked the property and as soon as I left called the office and paid the £300 holding deposit (seems a bit high to me), as there were other people viewing the property straight after so I wanted to make sure I got in there fast. I got a call about an hour later from the agent saying that the other people who viewed the property after me had upped the offer by £25 per month and that if I wanted to guarantee the property then she suggested also raising my offer to this amount. I thought about it and really liked the property so agreed. Today I went into the office to pick up my receipt for the £300 holding deposit and the application forms. I asked the lady in the office to clarify the fees and she then told me that they totalled £540!! A whopping £190 more than what was quoted to me whilst viewing the property. I'm not sure that I can afford these fees but now they have taken the excessive holding fee, I am worried that this will not be refunded. They haven't provided me with any terms and conditions and I haven't signed anything. Please help! Thanks

We agreed to rent a house with a £500 holding deposit based on moving in on a certain date. Just days before the move in date, we called the agency to check all was ok and were told that there was a serious problem. The previous tenants had refused to leave and court papers had been served to get them evicted. This meant that we weren't able to move in. We tried to come to a compromise with the agency about a new date but they were useless at keeping us informed about the progress of the court case and they kept moving the move in date further and further back. As the end of our previous tenancy agreement was very close, we had no choice but to find another property with another agent. The first agent have refused to provide us with our holding deposit back, despite the fact that, through no fault of our own, the tenancy was unable to proceed. Are they right in being able to keep our £500?? Thinking about small claims but I'm not sure how strong the case would be. Help!

I found a place that I liked and paid an £800 holding deposit to an agency. They sent through an acceptance document and T&Cs confirming the move-in date, the deposit taken, rental ammount etc. but this was all 'subject to contract'. This was 6 weeks before we were due to move in. 2 weeks later we got an email from the agent saying that the landlord wanted us to move in 3 days earlier than agreed. We said no becuase we already had an overlap between the old and new rentals so we didn't want to pay extra rent. A week later we got another email requesting that the move in date be changed and we refused again. One week before we were supposed to move in we got another email saying that we had to change the date or 'the deal is off' and we also got a phone call saying we should move the date or they would refund the money. We took a day off work and saw four properties and luckily one of them was fine so we took it there and then. We told the agent to refund the money. Surprise, surprise, that evening they emailed us with the contract we'd been waiting for for five weeks! At this point we told them that they had already backed out of the agreement and they should refund the money. They have refused to refund the money claiming it is non-returnable. Clearly this is ridiculous. I've now exchanged several emails and they have said that it is non-returnable and also that it is out of their hands becuase it is up to the landlord to release the money. Is the landlord really responsible for the holding deposit? If we go to small claims should we prosecute the landlord or the agent? It is so clear that they are in the wrong I can't believe that they are even trying to hold on to the money.