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?

And re. check-out fees from a legal perspective:

The normal type of clause provides for the landlord to pay for one (say the checkin meeting) and the tenant to pay for the other (say the checkout meeting). That is quite fair, and generally cannot be challenged. Provided the fees charged are reasonable.

I've checked and the LL paid for the check-in.

OP I agree with wowfudge that writing the letter would be cathartic and as a LL I would want to know about a syster agent (previously said upthread). However I also agree with cavkc and TenOnMe that you seem to be tying yourself in knots (as I have also said upthread). Several people on here have given you excellent advise which has now been confirmed by Shelter, yet you still seem to be hell bent on finding something else to winge about (asbestos). You obviously hate this house/LL/agent so do yourself a favour and put you energy into finding somewhere else to live and move out in December as per the Sec 21.

A small victory today. I called the agent to ask for my LL's contact details. At first she said oh, the LL wants things to go through the agents first. I said yes but you have to give it to me within 21 days. Then she said okay but the LL is away on holiday for a few days at the moment. I said that's fine, so when will I receive the information... next week? She said yes. I said thanks and hung up.

Within 3 minutes, I got a call from her again, this time to say her boss has told her that they have spoken to a builder who will be coming to fix the window and that I need to send a letter to them to request the LL's details before they will release the info. To that, I said I will.

I imagine I shall send in a letter just asking for the LL's details first today. By recorded delivery.

In answer to the above comments, yes I do want to move. However I do not want to be pressured to move at the end of 6 months and I do not want to be pressured to pay bogus fees for tenancy renewal in case we don't find something suitable within the next few weeks and have to stay for longer, when it's just a conversion to a Periodic Tenancy which is automatic and should not require any action on the agents' part.

Oh and I was super polite and nice to the agent. I made a mental note to always appear sweet to them from now on. I was a bit heated before when I called them up after the surprise inspection. But I think they get the message now.

There have been a number of occasions when I have had to write to various people and organisations to resolve a situation which was unfair and where I was being taken for a mug. I haven't had to do that with a letting agent - other than when I sacked the agent who was 'managing' the house we let out. They did not enforce their 3 months notice clause because I pointed out they had failed to manage. I have done with a household name mortgage lender which tried to bully me into something I didn't want after their incompetence led to an issue.

I think if you write such a letter, sticking to the facts, there is no reason the OP and her family will have a hellish experience - they are being reminded of their obligations, etc. You don't name call or make threats, you are professional and to the point and make it clear what you expect to happen rather than just ranting. They bloody should take it personally when they are flouting the law and put their house in order. If they care about their reputation they will do.

The OP doesn't want to stay so has until the weekend before Christmas to find somewhere else. She has a reference from the LL she rented from for 7 years immediately prior to this tenancy. In fact, she should make it clear to the current agent that she expects them to provide a truthful factual reference if she needs it.

She is much more clued up about her rights and the sharp practices of agents so is unlikely to let her family be treated the way this agent has. She knows the potential pitfalls and will be more savvy when renting in the future.

OP - an email is, by law, perfectly acceptable as a request in writing. It they are nearby, I'd be tempted to call in and hand them the written request as they are being obtuse.

However I do not want to be pressured to move at the end of 6 months…

OP - A landlord has the legal right to retain possession at the end of a tenancy but must follow the correct legal procedure, which includes serving a section 21 notice. They have done that now. You can do whatever you're trying to do now, but I really think alongside this, you should start looking for a new place asap.

I know you don't want to listen to me, because unlike others on this thread I am not writing what you want to hear, and fully supporting what you want to do.

The last thing you want though is realising one month later that you really have to leave in two months, but then have only one month to find a new place to stay in. Most places ask for two months notice. We gave our current estate agents that notice a week ago. They advertised the same day for occupancy from January 2015. A few hours later, a couple asked to view the flat the next day, which I said yes to. That couple's offer was accepted by the LL.

So the flat we're currently living in, which is only available in January 2015, is already off the market NOW. It wouldn't appear in adverts a month down the line...

TenOnMe completely agree

Whilst the agents have obviously been a bit heavy handed, what is wrong with a LL confirming that they require the property back at the end if your tenancy. They have to follow legal guidelines, which is why they issued the s21 it's not something they have done to persecute you, the LAW insists that they must issue you with this notice.

The LL will have expenses themselves, such as a mortgage, so obviously they want the vacant time to be as little as possible.

They can't charge you for moving to a rolling tenancy, I hadn't realised that was what they were trying to do OP.

I think you're entirely justified in writing to them stating that you'd like the contract to roll on but as you are ordinarily statutorily entitled for it to do so, you aren't prepared to pay a fee for it. The ball is then in their court as to whether they stand by their section 21 notice or decide to revoke it. You'll have to be prepared for the former as matters stand though so as TenOnMe says it would be sensible to start house hunting now.

I've written the letter now. It's quite long, and encapsulates quite a few of the points mentioned, and of course also the fact that we are not prepared to pay "tenancy renewal fee" for something that we are statutorily entitled to.

It's not that I've not been listening to the others commenting on here. I understand it will make life "easier" by just stomping up the fees and moving on with a lesson learnt - that is DH's view. But I will at least try challenging it once. I can't imagine what more worse can happen now apart from having to move at the end of 6 months or perhaps having a bad reference, which will mean we have to pay a higher deposit perhaps. Of course we have been house hunting all this time, but we don't want to go through lettings agents again if we can help it, so it's been a bit trickier finding somewhere suitable. The area where we live now has a much lower than average amount of housing for rent here. Even in the bigger towns around here, the amount of property to rent is not comparable to the bigger cities we've lived in. We've got 1 viewing with a private LL coming up soon. Of course if the worst happens, we will use an agent again, but we'll try not to let it come to that.

I think you may find you have more problems with going to a LL direct than using an agent. A lot of LL's are not aware of their obligations or can't be arsed which is why they don't use an agent. You may avoid the fee's but could open up a whole raft of other problems.

I don't mean to slag off all agents, knowing you are one :) I just find that most agents in this sort of area where we are now tend to charge spurious fees and I don't feel like using any of them. I'm not discounting agents outright. I just said I'd prefer to bypass them at this stage. If I do find the odd agent who doesn't charge ridiculous "tenancy renewal fees" for the automatic conversion of an AST to a Periodic tenancy, and who doesn't charge say £210 for drafting up a tenancy agreement in the first place (!) then I may consider them, as long as their other fees are not in my opinion, too high. It all comes down to what one is comfortable with, and I think when one knows their rights, and these days with help from Shelter and CAB, and with the many blogs and forums online where people discuss LL/tenant/agent issues, a lot of personal research can be done that way without using agents as a go-through. I don't see the difference between tacking a rogue LL on my own with how I'd deal with a rogue agency tbh.

Good for you OP - I get where you are coming from. With a private LL you now know what kinds of questions to be asking; how often do they like to inspect and how do they arrange it, what's the procedure if something goes wrong, do they have emergency cover in place if there's a problem at evenings or weekends, etc, etc.

Ten I don't believe I have been 'telling the OP what she wants to hear', but I have been supportive. There have been a number of things you have been wrong on - for example, a tenant doesn't have to give two months' notice. It's the LL/agent who has to give two months notice, a tenant one month. You also made a comment about foreseeing a problem when her DH had already signed, but we established they had put money down before the extent of the different fees was communicated and she is named on the tenancy agreement. You are correct that unless the agents do an about turn then the s.21 notice has been served and they should leave at the expiry date on there.

Kettle I am not an agent I am a LL and I have seen the unscrupulous behaviour of private LL's. No deposit protection, properties "tarted" up for the market that are riddled with damp and mould. Gas Safety certificates "purchased" without the engineer even visting. This list could go on. Just make sure you have done everything possible to cover yourself if you go down this route.
There are a lot of accidental LL's out there that do not understand what their legal responsibilities are. We have just let a property to a family that have had to move 5 times in the last 3 years due to accidental LL's. Their 1st question to us was the property a long term investment or were we renting out our old family home to ride out the market. It was very much a long term investment and had just been refurbed for the rental market.

Ah okay sorry for the mix up. Thank you for your advice too. There are bad landlords and agents out there no matter what. Once we rented a flat and it had a bad mould-infested en-suite bathroom. When we notified the agent about it, nothing was done. Not sure if that was the agent's fault or the landlord didn't want to fix it, but if it was the landlord who didn't want to fix it, then there was nothing the agent could do either. At the end of the day, a good agent won't really matter much if the landlord is bad.

As renters we are just at a disadvantage in this country. At the end of the day, we just always have to watch our backs and make sure things are done properly and lawfully, and not just sit back and hope the landlords or the agents are doing the right thing. We have moved lots of times, sometimes because the landlord or agent weren't doing their jobs right. The way it is, that's just the way it will be until something is done to regulate the rental market.

We've had good landlords before. They met us face to face, we got to know them quite well. They care for the property. When something goes wrong with it, they are quick to respond and make sure things are fixed. Of course, we are prepared to move several times again, as that is the nature of DH's job.

kettleoffish

You're right. Something has to be done by the government. I'm afraid "good" LLs are rare.

In Europe, as I previously mentioned (personal experience from France and Germany), the law is much more on the side of the tenant. I know some people with properties in the UK and one of the aforementioned countries. In the UK, they get away with kicking tenants out, after a year, etc. which they can't over in Europe. He can't even enter the property over there. It's basically the tenant's for the duration of their stay.

Yes I have heard about Germany too. But I believe the time will come in a couple of years when the number of renters in England will be significant enough to put enough pressure on the government to do something about the rental market. This situation can't go on, unless the economy picks up or if people are earning enough to buy their own home. Housing Benefit doesn't often even pay enough these days to cover the entire rent. Homelessness is a very real threat to those who have lost their jobs due to cuts.