Hi There, i am bit of tricky situation but wondering if you can guide me. I used agent to find a tenant for my property. They found a tenant and asked me to sign the “instruction for exchange” , which i did. However, due to my own personal reasons i am not able to go ahead with this rental and this rental planned to start in 1 week time. Looking at that i served my agent notice of cancellation because i was within the 14 days cooling off period which they had mentioned in letting terms and conditions.
However, now agent came back to me and saying that i have no other way now except to go ahead with renting out my property i.e. i cant cancel rental which is planned to start in 1 week even though i had not received any money or neither signed the tenancy agreement yet (even my agent had not signed tenancy agreement yet).
Agent now threatening that their legal team will sue me now as i signed instruction for contact which is a legal binding that i “must” go ahead with rental.
Please can you let me know if i can be sued for this reason? I was happy to pay any fee to agent if they had occured in funding tenant but they saying i have to go ahead with rental now.
Any help which you can provide is appreciated!
Sounds like the agent is trying it on to get the fee. Did you agree to them collecting future rent as well?
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You do not have to go ahesd . You MUST tell them NOT to sign on your behalf. You wanted them to find a tenant ,they did so,so they can ask for their fee
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Thanks Colin! Yes, told them not to sign but as per them i had signed instruction for exchange. Yes, they were acting as the letting agents and was planned to collect rent too.
You may want to contact the tenant directly as well if you haven’t. Make sure the letting agent is communicating with them and get the notice to the tenant in the cooling off period.
Make sure all of this is documented. Send a follow up email of any phone calls with the agent confirming what was discussed.
Sorry you’re dealing with this.
that is why they want to carry on to get their fees in collecting rent
Agreed: email confirming not to go ahead as previously requested, and request invoice for finders fee with a breaksown of reasonable costs, remembering when you get it, that should exclude any part of the tenancy agreement costs since your request, or after one was sent to the prospective tenant, whichever was earliest.
Remind them they are acting in your behalf and must do so in a professional and courtious manner, and promptly execute your latest instructions, and if they have failed to do so, that you will sue them.
Check the contract you signed with the agent and any email/written communication. It may be ghat you waive the right to the cooling off period once they sign up a tenant.
Are they just acting as the agent or are they actually the tenant and sub-letting? If its the latter then I would get out of this deal at all costs.
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