Hi all, I’m interested to see if anyone else who has rented through Chase Evans has had a similar experience to ours.
When we moved into the flat it was marked in the inventory as “Professionally cleaned (minor omissions)”. We queried this and asked to see an invoice to prove that it had actually been professionally cleaned - as it seemed inconceivable that a professional cleaning firm would, for example, forget to clean the oven (which hadn’t been cleaned at all). Chase Evans provided a “receipt” that didn’t include the flat address and had the phone number of the company redacted out. They claimed the redactions were due to GDPR.
Upon moving out, there were a few minor cleaning omissions and Chase Evans charged us £150 to remedy these. They again emailed us a “cleaning invoice” that had all key details redacted (e.g. address of the flat). When I asked why, the agent said that the redacted details were personal information about our landlords that they had to remove due to GDPR. This is clearly not credible as the invoice was addressed to Chase Evans, and we know our landlords personal details anyway as this was on our contract.
My assumption is that the flat was never cleaned at all on either occasion, the invoice related to a different flat, and Chase Evans simply pocketed the money. I’ve raised my concerns with Chase Evans but predictably enough been met with obfuscation and avoidance. I don’t really care about the £150, but providing false invoices is a pretty cut-and-dry case of fraud. I’m wondering if anyone else has encountered similar issues?
Their claim from you is for compensation, not a cleaning fee, (which would be illegal). There is no requirement for a landlord/agent to actually use the money to pay for cleaning, so their fake invoice is largely irrelevant. To be eligible to claim the compensation from you, they have to be able to show that you didnt clean to the agreed standard. That doesnt have to be the standard you received the property, (despite that being the usual convention). It just has to be evidenced as the agreed standard, which would usually be as part of the contract/signed inventory. So if you signed to say you would leave the property clean to a professional standard, they probably have a case against you if you didnt perform. It would have been up to you to ask for the oven and other things to be cleaned at the start if the property was not as agreed.
Having said all that, it sounds like they may be guilty of sharp practice and in your shoes, I would make a formal complaint and make clear that you will escalate it to their redress scheme if necessary.
Thanks for your reply David. I don’t have any particular dispute with having to pay for extra cleaning, and I get that they’re not actually obligated to provide an invoice at all.
My issue is that they’ve already voluntarily chosen to share an “invoice” with us (when they could have just declined to do so), and so effectively they’ve already committed fraud by providing a false document. My understanding is that DPS etc don’t have jurisdiction over fraud - do you have a pointer as to which redress scheme we should be approaching?
the agent has by law to display details of their redress scheme in their premises and on their website so it should be easy to find. There are only two.
However, you must have already formally complained to the agent before you can complain to a redress scheme.
My concern would be that the fee they charged you was not (as far as I can tell from your posts) a deposit deduction through DPS. If not, then it was a fee charged illegally for which they could face a hefty fine.
Thanks Tatemono - I’ve had a look and it seems to be the Property Ombudsman.
To clarify, it is a proposed deduction through DPS - while we were negotiating the deductions we queried whether £150 was a reasonable fee for the cleaning omissions, and they emailed us the “invoice” as proof that they’d already incurred these costs.
Interestingly we’ve dealt with two separate property managers at Chase Evans who’ve both provided us with these dodgy documents, so it seems to be a company policy rather than a rogue agent… hence why I’m curious whether other Chase Evans tenants have had similar issues.
ah right, well I would suggest you refuse the deposit deduction via the DPS portal and then let DPS mediate. But if, as you say, there were “a few minor cleaning omissions” and Chase Evans have evidence of this, you’ll prob lose your £150. It doesn’t matter whether £150 was actually spent on cleaning. As David says, it’s a figure for compensation.
I always recommend that tenants take a series of photos of the state of the property when they leave to counter any false claims made via DPS. Maybe that’s something you can learn from this unsettling experience.
Cheers, yeah, will do that. As mentioned, the £150 isn’t really the issue and I’m fine with whatever DPS decide is a reasonable fee for the cleaning. But regardless of the cleanliness of the flat, falsifying invoices seems to be pretty clearly fraudulent/unethical behaviour and any agent who does that should really be facing some kind of consequence.
well that’s for you to pursue with the redress scheme but to be fair to them, they’re under no obligation to actually use your £150 to employ a cleaner so that’s not really the issue here. The issue is that you have asked for proof that a cleaner was employed and they don’t seem to have provided an authentic invoice/receipt for that service. IIWY, in my complaint, I would focus specifically on that issue and separate it from any gripes you may have about the deduction itself.
Yeah, if you’d read my reply you’d see that I don’t have gripes with the deduction itself and was specifically asking for advice on the legality of falsifying/misrepresenting an invoice.
It wouldnt necessarily be a fee if it was charged after checkout and they made clear that it was due to the tenant not cleaning. Thats certainly arguable as compensation.