Query

[stick]

Hi all,

I have owned a property in which I have been letting for the past x years and for the past two of these years it has been let using a fully managed service from a local letting agency.

To be fair I have had issues with their services from the first month, for example; the lease states:

"Subject as hereinafter provided payment of the Rent shall be made in arrears on the same date of each and every calendar month. Said to is the date of the Lease as indicated above."

The date this section is refering to is the 23rd of each month, however the rent within the first couple of months was always paid around five days late. I considered this a minor issue as it was not effecting my mortgage repayments, unfortunatly the rent payments became progressivally worst towards the end of the lease.

To cut a long story short I had verbal altercations via telephone with the director of the company after she accused me of lying and changing a lease, which has resulted with me taking my issues to the Property Ombudsman.

As I have mentioned previously I had a lease signed by myself and the letting agency stating:

"Subject as hereinafter provided payment of the Rent shall be made in arrears on the same date of each and every calendar month. Said to is the date of the Lease as indicated above."

I assumed I would get the rent regardless of the tenant paying the letting agency. I made the letting agency aware of this and they claimed the lease stated something different:

"Subject as hereinafter provided payment of the Rent shall be made in arrearson a monthly basis to the Owner's bankers within 10 working days of the due date, provided the same shall have actually been received. Said to is the date of the Lease as indicated above".

As you can see their version of the lease (which is not signed by myself and so does not apply to me) would suit their situation perfectly as they would of covered themselves incase of late rent payments. They have admitted that my version of the lease was the active lease but they wasn't meant to use it as they had it revised.

After getting the letting agency to finally agree on which version of the lease I had they are now saying that I signed their Terms and Conditions which states:

"Recieve ongoing rental payments, prepare and forward to you and/or your accountant financial statements on a monthly basis, and remit to you or your bankers the balance of rental payments within 2 weeks fo the due date, provided the same shall have actually been received."

This was signed a couple of days before the lease was signed so I am hoping that the lease over rules the terms and conditions.

Any advice on this situation will be greatly appriciated.

[Richlist]

If you are getting your rent within a couple of weeks of it becoming due I personally think thats perfectly acceptable.

However, if you feel you can't live with that situation and the agency aren't prepared to improve things, then perhaps you should find another agency to handle your business.....there are a few good ones out there. Just be prepared to also loose your tenant if the current agency found them for you.

[stick]

Sorry, just to be clear the current lease has now been terminated. The advise I am after is for my formal complaint to the Property Ombudsman, furthermore in the closing months the rent was overdue by over a month.

Thank you once again.

[Richlist]

OK thanks for the clarification.

I'm not sure what it is you are hoping to gain from your action as you are unlikely to receive any compensation. The scale of any losses either perceived or real are so small as to be hardly worth your time & effort.