Letting agents have discovered large rent arrears - what to do?

[rubyhorse]

Hello. I'm helping BIL with his finances at the moment. At the beginning of the summer we went through all the people he owed money to and settled up, including the letting agent on his flat. They confirmed the amount owing, we paid, all fine.

They have now written to him to say that our original query has highlighted a problem they had with their system, and now that they've sorted that problem out they've discovered that he in fact owes about £2000. They've sent a new statement but won't meet to discuss how they arrived at this figure - have said there's no point in a meeting until we can come up with a plan to pay it back.

My response to this is - what on earth?!?!

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to approach it, and what his rights are?

Thanks.

They have to be able to show how the debt arises, otherwise they can't enforce it. Ask for copies of the invoices.

OK, thanks. Will try that. I think that by sending the statement of transactions they believe they have done that. But I have no faith in that statement because they sent one at the beginning of the summer, which they assured me was absolutely correct, with a totally different amount on it.

What is the monthly rent? Can you work it back via what payments you have made?

They definitely should and must be able t prove where the shortfall has come from.

How long as he been in the property?

Contact your Citizens advice bureau, it may be that they cannot claim again when the account in effect has been settled (regardless of whether the claim is genuine or not). CAB can also help in terms of legal issues and other advise and may be able to get the estate agency into negotiations - which would be better. You can also decide not to take the refusal to discuss the matter to heart and show up at their offices and ask to speak to the manager, there you can speak sensibly to the individual and tell them your concerns regarding not having seen the full statement of the account. I mean if they have made one mistake surely they can have made another.

Is the dispute about how much the rent actually was or how much of it he's paid to date?

Perhaps I'm missing something but presumably there is some kind of paperwork confirming what the rent is, and unless he's been paying in cash he should be able to prove how much of it he's already paid I would imagine. My point it it ought to be reasonably easy to demonstrate their mistake, assuming there is one.

What method of payment did he use? Was it a monthly direcr debit or standing order?

Can you go back and look at his bank statements and check the monthly payments.

"it may be that they cannot claim again when the account in effect has been settled (regardless of whether the claim is genuine or not). "

Like this approach. If you paid the amount owing several months ago in full and fnal settlement of arrears at the time I think there is a legal argument that no debt for that period can now be asked for again.

Did you/BIL have any reason to believe that the amount was wrong at the time?

I mean did it seem suspiciously little or not tally with what he believed he owed?

I am not an expert at all - but I know in cases with overpayments of salary and bank errors, they are often allowed to redress the error, and there was a court case over this recently that hinged on whether it was likely that the person could have believed that the money was genuinely hers and spent it in good faith.

Hello all - thanks for responses and just an update. We've gone through the account and he has underpaid over the course of the last two years. I don't know why, but the agents started his account with a large credit, so this hasn't become apparent until now because in their system he hasn't looked as though he owes. Seemingly he's changed the date his payment is due two or three times over the last few years - every time he's done that they've charged him the difference in days between the old and new dates, but then their system has registered a payment so they haven't charged him any other rent for that month, if you see what I mean - the result is that he has several whole months rent owing. An extra complicating factor is that he has cerebal palsy so isn't detail conscious enough to pick up on all these things at the time - and we dropped the ball because we thought he had housing benefit paid direct, which wasn't the case. Pants. Will have to just go in with an offer of what he thinks he can repay - a drop in the ocean.

Thanks again.