Dodgy Letting Agents

[beclourob]

I have just moved out of a property that was formerly managed by a letting company called Design Living, run by a Ray Sherlock. From June 2008 to Feb 2009 we were paying rent to Ray, in the good faith that he was passing it on to the landlord. Our deposit of nearly £900 was also payed to Ray.

 

Since Feb 2009, the property has been managed by a different management company, and we were informed in Feb that Design Living had gone in to administration.

 

Since moving out I have found out that that my deposit was not put in a deposit protection scheme, some of my rent payments were not passed from Ray to the landlord and Ray has now disappeared.

 

I understand that the landlord has been left out of pocket by this situation, but struggle to have any sympathy when it is their responsibility to ensure the management company they are using is above board. The landlord, not us tenants, should have checked the deposit was put into a protection scheme with the 14 day time frame.

 

Please could someone give me some advice on who is responsible for paying back this deposit to me? Is the landlord legally obliged to pay me this deposit back?

 

In addition to that, are they also obliged to pay me 3 times the deposit amount in accordance with the Deposit Protection Scheme guidelines for deposits which are not put into the scheme within 14 days?

 

If the landlord is legally obliged to pay this money, what action do I need to take to ensure I get what I am entitled to?

 

Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks

[Kentish Lass]

The Agent acts on behalf of the Landlord, so it is ultimately LL's responsibility to ensure deposit is protected.

 

Write to your LL and say that your deposit was paid in accordance with your tenancy agreement with him and request its return. Point out that unless you receive this deposit, in full, within [10-14] days, you will have no choice but to take legal action to recover same, and may also seek the 3x deposit penalty which might be imposed on LL for non-compliance with the deposit protection legislation.

 

In this situation where the LL has trusted the Agent (and this is happening all over the country - Agents are not regulated and it is sometimes very difficult to know who is trustworthy and who is not [e.g. current legal case being heard re Foxtons]) I would be happy, if I were you, to accept the return of your deposit. I suspect that if he returns it, and you go after him for the 3xdeposit penalty, the judge may just be sympathetic towards LL - and since new claims are not going through the small claims procedure you could end up with costs against you.

[MartinPC]

I agree with Kentish Lass above,

 

As a landlord my, then, agency owner transpired to be an alcoholic and was killed in a car accident whilst under the influence.

 

Trying to sort the aftermath out with my tenant the agent had been my agent thus my responsibilty, the agent had spent the tenant's deposit on alcohol and it was my, the landlord's, problem, I had appointed the agent, the tenant had not.

 

As long as it is in the tenancy agreement that you pay monies to the agent then you can, politely, tell the landlord it is his/her problem.