Landlord request feels unfair

[Uberbeeboo]

Hi, I'm looking for some advice about our rights as tenants. We have lived in our rental property for coming up to 5 years and were made aware in March our landlord wanted to sell when our tenancy ended on 31st august 2024.

We therefore purchased a new build property which we believed would have been built by now, however we now have been given the completion date of 30th September 2024.

Today we asked the estate agent who manages our property if we can stay until our new property is ready to move into and they have responded with an ultimatum saying we can stay, but there will be a £400 increase of the rent per month starting next week when the rent is due.

The rental house is not sold and we've only done 2 viewings since April. We've been good tenants and were disappointed we had to move anyway. We really can't afford an extra £400 next week, so I was hoping if someone would kindly give me a little guidance with this please?

Brilliant. Well done OP.

You did well to get a solicitor consultation and letter written for less than £400!

Might be the solicitor acting on her house purchase.

But also… the agent has gone cowboy with threats, I think it would be worth paying more than the rent difference for a solicitor, else who knows if they would demand they should get admin fees and inconvenience bonuses and heck knows what.

We went through the Housing Loss Prevention Advice Scheme who put us in touch with a local solicitor who subscribes to that service. We were entitled to free support as we were at risk of homelessness. I'd never heard of it but it's where Citizens Advice pointed us to.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-loss-prevention-advice-service-hlpas

This may be useful to anyone else going through similar. The solicitor said the scheme was only introduced in 2023 but it's a free service if you qualify. It's not means tested but you have to have been served notice and are at risk. They ask for everything though, every correspondence, every document and tenancy.

What a brilliant service.

It's a great new service. I sent an email last night highlighting the issues and received a call this morning from them and they pointed me straight to a local solicitor that afternoon.

That’s absolutely fantastic. Well done.

It sounds like the letting agent/landlord may have shot themselves in the foot if they’ve not done things like protect the deposit they are on very dodgy ground and you can claim back more than the deposit because of this.

That’s fantastic, OP. It sounded so dodgy when the agent said to only communicate with them and issued threats, and it was.

I'm reading the reviews online and the director is named on almost every one and described as threatening, unlawful intimidating and arrogant. There's also a lot of complaints that he harasses past tenants even after they've left the property. I get the feeling it's not over yet unfortunately.

He's probably never had a solicitor's letter off the back of his behaviour before either though, so hopefully that will be enough to make him think twice and put him back in his box!

Omg!! You’ve definitely done the right thing then, well done you! Let’s hope this puts a stop to his behaviour and no one else, especially less savvy gets put through what you’re going through

Let's hope he gets his comeuppance!
Bet they haven't protected your deposit either...
Is there any way you can report them officially? Do Letting Agents have professional bodies?

Report them to one of the Letting Agency Redress schemes (after this is all done!):

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housingadvice/privateerenting/lettingagenttredress_schemes

I’m delighted for you! You must be so relieved @Uberbeeboo

They're under the property ombudsman who I called and they told me the correct procedure to complain.

First thing is to request the complaints policy from the agent and apparently that should be provided in 3 days. The response we got from the agent for that request was 'in due course'. It's very difficult trying to do this properly with this agent, they're just being silly.

The deposit is definitely protected properly, I found the email last night, however the agent is notorious for battling with tenants over any possible thing. I'm expecting a battle when we get to that stage.

It must be reassuring to know it’s them acting illegally, but I don’t envy you the battle. With any luck the agent will back right down once he realises you have a solicitor on side.

When I’ve had to follow procedures like the ombudsman’s complaints one, I tend to quote them as I put in my requests/paperwork. Along the lines of “please send me a copy of your complaints procedure; I expect to receive this within 3 working days, as per the Property Ombudsman Guidelines”. Just to make it clear that I know what they are meant to do, and what I will be doing next if they don’t comply.

Good luck! When I bought a new build we didn’t complete until the long stop date (so as late as the developer could get away with). But they did have to give me 2 weeks notice. I think that was the time at which the build was complete and they submitted paperwork. Hopefully you’ll get your completion date next week which will help take some uncertainty away.

OP

I successfully won an estate agent dispute using ChatGPT to write the property ombudsman compliant letter in the correct format.

The dispute was over 5k and they backed right down. So if solicitor fees are expensive you could try that for your initial complaint letter. Tag me and I'll supply the prompts for your situation

When you move out please be sure to write a factual account of the agents actions on any review sites you can find.

The agents messaged to say he's aware that we've emailed the landlord. Apparently the landlord will be responding to us directly.

Have you given notice / told them their s21 is invalid?

Whatever they say is moot now, given the issues, anyway.

I'm posting the notice shortly by recorded delivery saying I'll vacate 30th September, I'll send it by email too. No I haven't challenged the s21 yet, I'm not going to talk to the agent anymore because he's unprofessional and trying to baffle us with made up law. The agent still adamant he's getting a possession order on 19th and claims he's being reasonable and I need to think very very clearly before I respond.

I'd just start replying: 'I will be paying/have paid the rent due and will be vacating the property on 30/09/'24'. Rinse and repeat to everything they send. Don't rise to it.