letting agent is confusing me advice needed ASAP???

[cicime]

Good Morning

 

I have a letting agent who was managing my flat on a 6 month shorthold tenancy, my tenants moved out after the 7 months and I have now since moved back in.

I have asked my agent to claim for a carpet because the tenants moved in a kitten without permission. The pets I presume destroyed the bedroom carpet which was only 6 months old when they moved in.

I have also claimed for destroying a large wardrobe left broken and dismantled and one week’s rent owing.

My agent asked me to bring in any evidence so I took photographs and took them to his office he then said he would deal with it for me and contact the tenants.

Now here we are one month later and I have had a letter from him asking me to open a free account with deposit protection.com, so he can transfer the deposit to me and then he has asked me to pay him £25 per hour to deal with it. Now I am really confused why would I want to do this when I know longer rent out my flat??? ( Please Advise)

 

Right from the start the agent has been really bad he has never kept me informed of any of the little extra he has taken like boiler knobs that got broke n (boiler one year old and under guarantee) I was charged £50 for a plumber to come in and pull one knob off and push it on to the one control needed most. When I came back into the flat, I went up my local plumber supply and bought new ones a full set for £10.It then took me all of 3 minutes to fix them on the boiler.

 

I was also charged another £50 to screw a door handle on (upside down) that had come loose and fit a fire alarm which I have since found out I did not have to have an alarm. I would have fixed one myself if the tenants had asked me for one.

Again none of this was I informed of.

All throughout the tenancy I was informed of nothing. I was also told that any rent arrears where covered with the management fee. Which is also a lie or I would have the one week’s rent owed by now? I was also given no notice of tenants moving out so could not make any plans with the flat in advance.

 

When I noticed the cat I told the tenants I could not let them have him has I have a allergic reaction to them and prefer no animals. They then told me that the agent said they could have them before they moved in and that he had asked me and I said yes.

Again the agent had said nothing to me I then spoke to the tenants and said they could keep the cat providing they had the carpets professionally cleaned when they moved out and paid a pet deposit to the agent. I then spoke to the agent to let him know what I had agreed. Phoning him back a month later he told me he had taken the deposit for the one cat (three months later they moved in a second kitten without permission which I believe may have done the damage to the carpets )

 

I have asked for the checkout report from them also and still nothing from them I now am beginning to wonder if they ever did one??

I am not being greedy with my claim I did have the carpet professionally cleaned but the urine smells was still there. I have since replaced the carpet with a much cheaper one and only charged for the new carpet not for the cleaning I paid for.

I was so glad to get my flat back I have since decided that letting is not for me but I am shocked to see that the agent despite keeping me informed about Zero!! Is he trying to pass the buck on to me?

Can you please advise me what to do because I do not have a clue which is why I took on a full managing agent in the first place and did not try to let it out myself? I lived in the unfinished flat upstairs and decided to let my flat out to help pay for materials to complete the one upstairs I was always nice to the tenants and always asked them to come to me if they had any problems .

I am excellent at DIY and any job that was done I could have done 100% better.

 

Any advice on this on where I may stand with this matter would be so helpful to me I am hopeless at paperwork and civil matters

 

Lorraine

[Steve__M]

I would refer to the contract between you and the agent first, to see what the agreement states.

 

I suspect legal action would be difficult and complicated as there seem to be a lot of separate issues many of which involve a small amount of money. Negotiation would be a better place to start.

 

With regard to the cat, I don't think you can say which cat caused the damage! But proving you've lost money because the agent failed to do a proper checkout could be hard, particularly as the carpet has been replaced.

 

If you do rent in future then have more confidence in getting more involved (particularly as you live close). Even for quite distant tenants I would not advise giving agent carte blanche to get repairs done. If I had then one agent would have bought a new fridge because the bulb on the old one had gone, and would have bought a new fire for a £1000 because the damaged flue was "obsolete" (yeah right!).