Our letting agent placed a sex offender in our property!!

[SunshineAndFizz]

We have a rental property and use a letting agent to find new tenants when needed - they do all the viewings, contracts, background checks etc. and once a tentant is in, we manage the tenancy ourselves.

This time we had loads of interest, several people wanted to rent the property and the agency recommended one couple above the rest (good jobs, finances etc,) so that's who we went with.

A few weeks after they moved in (we still hadn't actually met them ourselves) we Googled their names - random impulse after we'd been chatting about them - and discovered the husband had recently plead guilty in court to a number of child offences!

We'd never have rented to someone like that had we known - from a personal perspective I just didn't want to have anything to do with dealing with someone like that - and from a landlord perspective I felt it could put the property at risk (i.e. if others found out could they properly be targeted with violence).

I feel daft for not doing any checks/searches myself but that's what we were paying the letting agency to do. I assumed criminal checks were done but turns out it's just credit checks.

I now want them to manage the property so I don't have to deal with this man, until we can get them to leave (next challenge) and I don't think it's fair that they charge me for this, since they recommended them to us.

Do you think they should cover the management fee? Do I have any rights to insist this? Any general advice?

I assumed criminal checks were done but turns out it's just credit checks.

The fault lies here, you should have known what you were paying for.

You don't think the agency should charge you for doing the job they said they would do?

It is not their fault you didn't check what checks they actually do.

So true!

I can see how you feel appalled that such a person is paying you money in rent, but if you didn’t stipulate to the letting agency that you didn’t want anyone with a criminal record in your flat you should have said so. The agency haven’t done anything wrong here.

recently plead guilty in court to a number of child offences

Are you sure it's the same bloke? If this happened recently wouldn't he be in prison?

Can you actually refuse to let to someone with a criminal record? If you don’t want them in your property you just need to follow the procedure to end the tenancy. If you prefer the letting agent to act on your behalf, you’ll have to pay their fees. They’ve done nothing wrong.

No agency does criminal record checks. It's not even legally possible to do them for that reason.

I'm also wondering if this is the same person, how can he still have his good job if he's pleaded guilty to these charges?

Plead guilty to a number of child offences? He'd be awaiting sentencing and most likely not bailed 🤔Are you sure it's the same man?

The agency probably has no idea, they don't check and even criminals still have a right to somewhere to live

How long is their tenancy contract? Can you just not renew it when it ends? I think if you decide to force them out there's usually something like a 6 month notice period

Many people convicted of these types of offences get suspended sentences, especially if ‘non contact’ eg viewing images.

I’m disappointed in his wife staying with him, ew.

Are you sure that its the same man?

If so, you also need to read your insurance documentation to check for clauses on having someone with a criminal conviction living in the property.

If he's a convicted child sex offender, he will have a probation officer who will have had to vet all his housing to ensure he's ok to live there. He will also, have to be working very closely with his probation officer and a special police officer (MOSOVO).
From what you've said it must have been quite a minor offence if he's been realeased to the community etc. Are you sure it's the same man?

You talk as if they should have known but they don't do criminal checks.

Really sorry but there are many many sex offenders out there, far more than you think.

And that is only including the ones that are caught - they are just the tip of the iceberg. Reality is that we all come in to contact with sex offenders every day, we just have no idea.

Letting agents cannot legally get DBS checks run only employers and rightly so it’s also technically irrelevant if he can pay rent & has good credit & references but I understand that it’s the nature of the crime rather than the fact he’s got a criminal past plus I doubt you would even know about it from google if it was anything else. I don’t think there’s anything you can do & getting them out will be difficult unless they do something that warrants eviction. But it’s not the agents fault, they did their job properly.

Did you give them a list of people you don't want living in your property?

It is not standard to have a DBS check as part of a tenancy application.

You sound like overly involved landlords. I understand you manage the property yourself, I do too, but I don’t feel the need to constantly meet the tenants and know everything about them.

The lettings agent has done nothing wrong here.

Let them do the property management if you want but refusing to pay for this would be CFery in the extreme. You can’t ask them to do this and then withhold payment because of your own personal distaste of the offence. People with criminal records have to live somewhere, even those who have committed CSOs.

How can you tell from simply running someone's name through a search engine that they are one and the same person? Without further corroboration you can't tell. There are lots of people with the same name. People think it's as simple as that and ruin innocent people's lives. I get that what you think this person has done is despicable but you don't know for certain that it is the same person.
Besides you could have let your property in the past to people committing crimes who haven't been caught, but presumably you're okay with that?

I don’t think a letting agent would even be able to do a DBS check?
If you didn’t want someone with a criminal record living there you really needed to state

You sound too involved and the worst kind of amateur landlord. This is a business governed by contract law, not moral judgement- your job as a service provider is to fulfill your part of the contract, ie provide habitable accommodation, their job as tenants is to pay you the rent that is due.

I'm shocked about your level of involvement. Why do you feel you have to meet them? As a landlord beyond emergencies and booking regular appointments for boiler services etc/routine maintenance you do not need to contact your tenants, let alone 'know' them.

If, and it is a big IF, he is the same person as you have identifed from your google search then having recently pleaded guilty he will be under the supervision of probation/police. It is not your business to know anything further.

We 100% know it's him - the newspaper article had his photo, full name and first line of previous address. It was for possessing images so sounds like it's not enough to be actually sent to jail.

All valid points about understanding what the letting agency checks actually do - lesson learnt for us the hard way.

If you dont like this get out of this business - either sell up and invest in the stock market or let your agent do all the work

I mean the reality is that there are thousands of people coming out of prison every year and it would be a disaster if people didn't rent houses to even the worst of the worst as we would have thousands of ex offenders with nowhere to live and thousands of ex offenders living on the streets, probably more inclined to commit crime.