Is my estate agent allowed to do this?

[kettleoffish]

We moved in 4 months ago on a 6 month lease. Soon after moving in, we were sent a list of charges. Well I was surprised at first at what I read. In all my 12 years of renting with different agents around the country from moving about quite often, I've never met an agent who charges us £60 for extending the lease for another 6 months, or charging £75 for extending the lease to a 1-month running lease after our 6 mth lease is up.

The house has problems. The lounge window had a 2 inch crack on the bottom left corner which was never fixed. The agent had a builder come in to look but then after he went away, we never heard from him again. Now the crack has grown to a 8 inch crack.

And now, this is another first for me as well, but the agent sent us a letter at the beginning of October to ask us to tell them "soon as possible" if we are moving out of the house or not. Well I do want to move as this home is too small for us but we took it at first because it was the only house for rent in the area we wanted at first. But since letting agents often want people to move in within a month after putting down a deposit, we are still in the process of viewing new homes but didn't think we should pledge to move in any properties yet until November. So I did not respond to the current agent's request to speak to them yet.

This morning, a lady from the agent's office came knocking on the door. She came to do an inspection. She claims they have sent a letter to us earlier telling us they were coming to do an inspection. Well no they didn't, plus they didn't call either, so we were completely unawares of this. This is the school holidays and the house is a bit of a tip. At first I wanted to turn her away as this to me is an unannounced inspection, but my "soft" husband kept winking at me to let her in and she had a really argumentative tone to her voice and sounded very pushy but basically she "wanted" us to go to their office afterwards to speak to her boss to let them know whether we are moving or not.

I have never met an estate agent like this. I felt like arguing with her about the surprise inspection but because of my husband's obvious reluctance to put up any resistance, I let her be.

I feel like all this agent has done is not standard estate agent practice. Or is it?

OP - you need to make sure you deal with things from now on, not your DH!

Request a copy of the signed inventory now.

If I were you, I would document everything that has happened in a letter/email - from the charges being communicated after you had paid the deposit and signed the AST to the window not being repaired, the unannounced inspection visit, the asking you your intentions but sending a s.21 notice, failing to give you the landlord's details, etc, etc and send it to the agent, cc to the landlord (when you get their details). Point out the failures in law and the poor treatment of you by the agents.

Keep it factual and to the point.

If you hold them to account, I suspect these additional fees will go away and providing the check out process goes okay and you haven't damaged anything beyond normal wear and tear, there will be no attempt to dispute the return of your deposit.

You must be there at the check out inspection and take photos of everything. Do not be fobbed off that they will do it after you've left.

"They are lying about the law.

come on government, wake up - regulate agents!"

I am pretty sure that MPs don't care about the sort of services they don't use. They have little interest in the common people.

Hence:

Private Pensions, ISAs = Regulated, compensation scheme
Christmas Clubs, rental agents: Unregulated, no compensation

Ah... DH is telling me now to stop causing trouble or we will get a bad ref.

So he's happy to find you somewhere lese to live at all costs for a quiet life

If we find a house before the end of our six months lease, will the agent still be required to give a ref to the prospective agent? And if so, can they really say anything bad about us ? After all we haven't moved out yet and haven't came to the point of being asked to pay termination fees (and refusing)? And we never skipped a month's rent?

Yes I know I am too at this. But I don't want him to blame me if it all comes to pot.

When do agents give refs? Say we find a house next week or the week after, we apply for it. Then will our current agent have to give a ref then or does the new agent ask our current agent to give a ref only after our 6 months AsT has ended?

get a reference from the previous landlord / agency. You were with them for 7 yrs... you can explain the 6 month rental as temporary and not to your satisfaction.

If we didn't need that reference I wouldn't care really.

previous landlord gave us stellar refs. Ah okay... I will try that. Thanks.

I would love to start a campaign for compulsory regulation of lettings agents. I am a LL and a solicitor but, even so (d'oh) I had no idea that my agents were charging astronomical fees to my tenants for services that I was already paying for.

Also, my student daughter is now a private tenant and the way she has been treated by Lettings Agents is a disgrace - probably amounting to criminal unfair trading but seemingly standard practice amongst student letting agencies. 4 teenagers were pressured ON THE DAY OF VIEWING, 6 months before they needed a property, with no independent advice available, to pay the best part of £1,000 to secure their property. The piece of paper they signed was headed "admin fees" and the agency now claim it is non-refundable even though they took the property.

The tenancy contract they were then given was the most biased I have EVER seen (including a fine of £25 every time they report a maintenance issue), the house was provided filthy and when they queried it, the Agents sent an invoice from a cleaning agency saying it had been professionally cleaned. I did a bit of digging and guess what? - The agents own the cleaning company. The place had NOT been cleaned although the outgoing students had indeed been charged hundreds of pounds for the professional clean! Also the house did not contain the furniture expected. There is seemingly nothing they can do other than sue and tbh it is just below the threshold of being worth the time and hassle, and they cannot afford the time whilst studying hard for degrees. I am minded to take a group action pro bono for a much larger group of student tenants. But really the government should legislate and then ENFORCE the legislation eg HMO regulations. Grrrrrr...

OP get in touch with your LL direct and see if he agrees with, or even knows about, his agents' dodgy behaviour.

Sorry. All the cross-posts may have made it seem like I advised a solicitor for your notice, but it was just for general advice, not because you are in any trouble. You haven't done anything wrong.

Oh, my God. They really are a crooked piece of work!

• No termination fee for them. If they've put that in writing, you just forward that to future LLs, with backup reference from your previous LL, who is not your LL any more, therefore has no interest in fudging a reference to get a problem tenant out. Forward it to the Office of Fair Trading as well,while you're at it. It is not on at all for companies to impose (or even try to impose) fees after a contract is signed. We once were informed of a "referencing fee" (writing a reference for next rental property) after our S21 was served. We didn't pay it; the agents for our next house were decent, law-abiding types, so were happy to accept an alternative (bank statements).

• Take pictures of everything you can, showing condition of the property when you move out. Turn on all the lights to show how clean it is.

• Who did the inventory? Was it the agents or an "inventory service" company? Also, does DH remember signing each page of the inventory?

• Definitelydemand the LL's contact details (using details given), and inform them that you have been issued with a Section 21, and that the agent is trying to levy these fees. The agents may be trying to levy other fees on the LL. They are certainly trying to get a month's rent from a new tenancy fromthem.

• Definitely get a receipt for the handover of keys.

Regardless of what your lease says any terms need to meet the law or they are simply invalid. They may say they have the right of entry etc etc BUT you are entitled by law to say no.

The agent could also be leading the LL along, telling them that you've given notice, that way they get additional fees.

You have the right be to given the LLs contact information.

It would be normal for agents to request a reference from your existing agents, however if your former LL who you were with for years were willing to provide a reference you may be able to get round this.

My agents automatically issue a S.21 when issuing any new tenancy, confirming they will require possession of the property at the end if the tenancy. But they don't enforce it unless the tenant has gone into arrears etc. if the tenant has to be evicted, it allows a bit if a head-start to the LL, as the S.21 has to be issued to even start eviction proceedings (hope this makes sense!).

No one can inform you of additional charges AFTER you have taken possession of the property eg received keys.

I agree with others, agents should be regulated to stop them taking advantage of LLs and tenants alike.

That sounds good. Now if I want to get LL details from them, should I do it in writing to have a paper trail? Can I demand they provide the details within 14 days or something similar? I can call them too but not sure if they will give it since calling on the phone and making demands... no proof of doing that.

Do they call up my previous landlord to get a reference? My DH lost the reference letter from the previous landlord but luckily I scanned the letter and printed colour copies. Will the new agents accept copies of the letter or will they call the LL to ask? I'm sure if they call the previous LL he will say good things. He will remember us too as we have been long term tenants.

I feel somewhat ... relieved that I may not have to worry about the reference from this agent. I will of course not accede to their demanda if I know I don't have to depend on their reference.

DH found a campaign online for regulation of the private Lettings industry

www.generationrent.org

And I found this petition to ban agent fees :
www.generationrent.org/ban_fees

Looking around other properties. Seems other agents also charge contract renewal fees these days.

Better to rent with landlords privately or not? Through Gumtree?

You can normally find your landlord address through searching for your address on the Land Registry website. However if they've moved since they purchased the property it may not be current (worth a try though)

It could always be that the horrid woman who called round is just narky generally! Not saying it's the case but it's possible that they have no intention of evicting you but they want the document on file should you give notice and then refuse to move out.

ARLA is a voluntary and fairly toothless organisation but it is better than nothing (which is the only alternative) so get on to them. This may help:

www.nfopp-regulation.co.uk/complaints.aspx

I think it is 28 days max to get the landlord's contact details. And it really is no big deal to ask for another gas cert if you want one. These are TWO LEGAL RIGHTS.

(BTW on my tenancy agreement my details are c/o the agent, because that protects me while the signing up and referencing process is going on, I don't live very far from the property. Once I know the tenant I hand over my phone number - and of course if they want my contact details earlier, they can ask and shall be given)

the whole point of the deposit protection scheme is to stop unauthorised deductions. If you don't have that paperwork, ask for it again. As well as protecting the deposit, you must be given the info as to which of the three schemes it is in, and the ref no.

THIRD LEGAL RIGHT.

the protections you need are there. Use them! Please take a bit of time to read the Shelter website, be an informed tenant.

The deposit scheme is tds and I have found the details of our scheme on the tds website by searching based on our postcode, surname, etc.

I went on the land registry site and they have details of the title deed etc but would have to pay 3 quid for title register and another 3 for title plan. Which is the one I need? Anyway I'm not sure if it's worth paying.

Start putting everything in writing. IMO dodgy agents are terrified of paper trails and sounding like you know your legal rights will shut them right up hopefully. If you don't receive a response in writing, follow up in writing. Also if you have a telephone conversation with the agent, send them an email afterwards setting out your understanding of what they have said/any agreement reached. It's all important evidence if they try to screw you over.

They can't give you a bad reference for your refusal to pay unfair termination fees btw.

It would be the title deeds you needed