Letting agents pass key without deposit, advanced rent and signed contract

It sounds as if your agents are in breach of their agency agreement (but read it first to check what they have agreed to do for you).

If they are failing to deal with your issues properly you can bring a complaint about them to their property redress scheme: https://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2018/04/10/property-redress-schemes/

Or if the issues are serious you may be entitled to cancel your agency agreement (but check carefully first and maybe take legal advice).

Note that we have guidance on my service for landlords in this position which you can read about here: https://landlordlaw.co.uk/openaccess_trails/dealing-with-problem-letting-agents-a-guide-for-landlords/

Sack them. Engage someone competent. Write this off to experience.

1. You have delegated far too much. It's obvious that you know less about the agency than your tenant. You have made a mistake and there is nothing to do but deal with it. You should seriously reconsider whether you want to be a landlord at all.
2. Get rid of the agency at the first opportunity. This will take a long time if you are going to do this from a position of knowing who you are dealing with. Frankly £291 per month profit less tax seems pointless to me.
3. You say you have no time to manage this and you do not want any stress. Well firstly just take the small financial hit and then set about sorting this mess out. You really cannot delegate this to anyone else. If you decide you want to keep renting a house out that you cannot visit at such a theoretically low profit then the first thing you need to do is find a decent agent. This will take a lot of time and research on your part. Personally, after nine years in this game, I have never heard of one and neither have any of my landlord associates. Your experience is just typical of the underlying problem with all these types of social structures particularly as they get bigger. The staff are simply not up to the job and no amount of training or experience will make it so. Your agent, if he had any brains, would have examined the whole situation before contacting you, taken the cleaning hit himself, and tried to manage his mistakes in a professional manner rather than just dump the whole problem back on you, his employer. You are wasting your time with this agent who, like yourself, will be trying to be as hands off as possible. This is the all too common true meaning of what constitutes an "agent" in my extensive painful experience no matter what field they work in. Get rid of them.

There are some agents who advertise really low management fees to get your business and they haven't got the skills, experience, compliance and software infrastructure to manage the tenancy. There are over 150 statutes on the law books and they all need complying with. All the above cost money. Don't know if its like that in this case. I agree with Tessa- this is inexcusable and incompetent behaviour from an agent and they would no doubt be ordered to pay compensation to you as a landlord by whichever property redress scheme they are in. Please check that they have membership of both a property redress scheme and a Client Money Protection Scheme. Both are compulsory and they should not be trading without them. If they do not have them then you can report to the Trading Standards in the area where the property is situated.

Shocked but sadly not surprised!

If you think LL's have a bad reputation, then agents come a close second 🙂

I gave up using agents a long time ago, joined the NLA, gained my accreditation with them and continue to add to my knowledge. Being a landlord can sometimes be hard work, regardless of if you rent direct or use an agency. Sorry to hear of your experience.

As everyone else has suggested - get rid of the agent as soon as possible, complain to the agent's redress scheme if they are a member, and either find another agent (this site has a connections with Lettings Supermarket). Not used them, but I'm sure there will be many on this site which can vouch for them.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Shears at 13/01/2020 - 11:35
Hi Paul, just a little point on the monthly profit. The first month was low because of the set-up fee of £400. It seems the regular amount would be 750 less 59 giving a profit (before any other exs, like mortgage etc) of 691 which is a lot more acceptable

Reply to the comment left by Mike T at 13/01/2020 - 20:11
Fair comment. I replied too quickly.

Time to Ditch Your Managing Agent?

Your agent has failed a basic test. In my agency days, and now as a landlord, nobody moves in without a signed agreement, first month's rent paid (and cleared), deposit paid (and cleared). It is sad, but true, that you cannot really trust anybody these days and it is harder to sort something out when the tenant has the keys.

The agent should be asked to consider their position - if it was me I would be very embarrassed and would do some swift and clear deal on fees to try and keep the business, trying to remedy the situation at the same time. It does sound like they should go, though.

You do really need to have strong words with the agency's owner, sooner rather than later.