Tenancy agreement signed by all parties to commence end of July 2021. The prospective tenants have still not arrived in UK (as far as we are aware) so we are effectively 2 months in arrears. Having said that we have had confirmation from the letting agents that they have received the rental monies but they have not activated the contract nor have they sent us the rent. They state this is because the deposit not arrived. This is due to an error on their part as we should have received the funds in our account as we are placing with the deposit scheme ourselves. Despite providing the agent with our bank details they did not relay completely to tenants (international students). It was us who noticed on copy of transfer agent sent us that we were quoted as beneficiaries but had agent acount information so we told them this would be returned to remitter. Is this a reason to delay activation?
Question
England | Start of a Tenancy (England) | Tenancy Agreements (England)
Activating a Tenancy Agreement
Answer
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2 Comments
We’re not sure what is meant by activation. There’s either a tenancy or not but it can make it tricky if they’re not occupying as their only or principal home.
The fact they’ve paid rent would suggest there’s definitely a tenancy to us.
This just leaves the issues with the agent and we can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t transfer the money.
From what’s described it sounds like they may have received the second months rent too. The latter month could be allocated as the tenancy deposit instead of rent unless the tenant expressly said it was rent on paying. It would need to be the later payment because the 30 days starts from when received. The advantage of doing this is that it gets the deposit problem sorted and also creates arrears because that period now has no rent paid. Rent is easiest to chase later down the road if needed.
You could see what the complaints procedure is with the agent and follow that. They have to be a member of a redress scheme by law so if they don’t cooperate, a complaint can be made to the scheme.
The tenancy has been signed by all parties but we have not received a pdf copy of the agreement. The letting agents state they need to activate it (this is where we are confused too) and the excuse for the delay is the deposit monies not being received.
We trust we are right that as long as there is a tenancy signed we are entitled to the rental monies. Have chased agents again with the suggestion you gave re using part of the rent for the deposit. We will also look to logging a complaint. Thank you Guildy!