Tenancy agreement question

Tenant Discussion
1

Hi, I am due to move into new property next week and still haven’t received tenancy agreement. Process has been handled by a letting agent and they assured me move is still going ahead they are just waiting on solicitor to change LL details. Should I be worried?

2

Hi Otek,

It is certainly not out of the usual for a letting agent to:

  • take a long time to do very simple things like change the address of party on a tenancy agreement
  • leave a tenant in the dark until the last minute
  • be very poor at communicating

If you have already placed a holding deposit (and perhaps even paid your move-in money – i.e. the first month’s rent and the tenancy deposit), then it seems very unlikely that the tenancy will not be going ahead. And if it did not go ahead, my understanding is that you would be able to challenge this through the courts, since you have created an agreement to let the property.

It’s unlikely that the letting agent would need a solicitor to change the address on the document. This could mean either:

  1. they only let trained solicitors edit their contracts (which is totally unnecessary in the case of an address change)
  2. they are waiting for proof from a solicitor that their client, the landlord, has changed address, e.g. because they recently moved home. This would also be unnecessary.

So I wouldn’t personally be worried about the tenancy going ahead just yet, but I would be worried about having to deal with the agent in future if things go wrong in your new property.

Sam

1 Like
3

Sam is right, especially about the future worries. Is the tenancy going to be managed by what looks like this quite inefficient agent or by the landlord themselves? That will be the factor to decide the level of concern for the future. Just to add to what Sam has already well stated, have you asked the agent for a specific reason for the delay? Don’t accept a vague answer, ask for specifics. To back up what Sam so well states, a contract amendment does definitely not need the input of a legal firm. I do contract alterations myself, with no more than a secondary school education. It’s really not rocket science.