Cancelling Letting Agent Agreement | Returning Non Resident Landlord

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walletpod

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I hope the title of this thread is not too ambiguous.

We own a property in Ireland. We moved abroad with work, and rented out our property. We used the services of a letting agent to take care of this process for us. The property now has a tenant, with the initial years lease due to expire on the 1st Nov 2012. We are now fortunate enough to be able to move back to Ireland with work. We want to remove the cost of the letting agent - we feel that their services will no longer be needed as we plan to live in the same area as our property. The rental property is an apartment, and we plan to rent out a small house when we return.

In an ideal scenario I would like to remove the letting agent from the equation while keeping the tenant in the property.

Does anyone have any experience of this or maybe could offer some advice on how we should approach this matter?

My own thoughts are to notify both the letting agent and the tenant in writing in good time (say 2 months) before the lease is due to expire. But I've no experience of this, so this could well be the wrong path to follow.

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
 
The contract doesn't mention the process or terms around a termination unfortunately.

There is a section in the contract to specify what the term of the inital lease will be: 12mths / 6mths / Other. We selected "other". But "other" is not defined in the contract. Could I take this to mean that we are not bound to the 12mths / 6mths timeframe and if we take reasonable steps to inform all parties concerned of our intentions to remove the letting agent then we are taking the correct path?
 
The first thing I'd do is to inform the letting agent and see what they say. I would think they are getting a monthly charge and no breakage fee should be involved. Did they get you the tenant in the first place ? If so, I presume they charged you a fee for that which is seperate from actuall monthly charges.
 
elcato said:
The first thing I'd do is to inform the letting agent and see what they say. I would think they are getting a monthly charge and no breakage fee should be involved. Did they get you the tenant in the first place ? If so, I presume they charged you a fee for that which is seperate from actuall monthly charges.
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Hi Elacto, thank you for that. I think this is the best way to proceed - I'll notify the letting agent 2 months before the 1st Nov 2012 and inform them of our intent.

The letting agent arranged the tenant in the first place - they were paid for this. They are receiving a sum each month from the renatal income for letting the property. But of late, they are non responsive to emails, calls etc. We feel the service they provide is not deserving of the monthly fee they charge so we are willing to take this burden on ourselves.
 
I'd try ringing them so just to eliminate that they have changed their details. I presume you can see that the rent is still being paid in so they are still in business.
 
We tried the mobile number we were given a number of times before giving up. They must still be in business as the monthly rental amount is still crediting more or less on time (give or take a few business days) each month.

The email address we have does work, as they have responded to this in the past - but the frequency of responses is dissapointing and given that money is tight, we'd don't feel like this expense is justified anymore.
 
walletpod said:
The email address we have does work, as they have responded to this in the past - but the frequency of responses is dissapointing and given that money is tight, we'd don't feel like this expense is justified anymore.
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So your agent got you a good tenant 4 months ago and you receive the rent on time each month but because you don't get a response from the agent (what exactly are you needing to ask the agent?) you don't want to pay them plus you feel it's a waste of money. Did you agree an upfront fee to find a tenant (this is normally the case) and did you agree that there would be an ongoing collection of rent by the agent plus dealing with the tenant's and is there a monthly fee for this service? If there is a monthly fee, it would look to me like you have a one year agreement/contract with the agent to pay him.
 
Generally there are separate letting and management fees. OP do you have a contract/description of what the management entails (dealing with tenant queries, organising repairs etc?) Also why is the tenant paying rent to the agent rather than directly to you. We use letting agents (but never their management services) yet the rent has always been paid directly to us.
 
Bronte said:
So your agent got you a good tenant 4 months ago and you receive the rent on time each month but because you don't get a response from the agent (what exactly are you needing to ask the agent?) you don't want to pay them plus you feel it's a waste of money. Did you agree an upfront fee to find a tenant (this is normally the case) and did you agree that there would be an ongoing collection of rent by the agent plus dealing with the tenant's and is there a monthly fee for this service? If there is a monthly fee, it would look to me like you have a one year agreement/contract with the agent to pay him.
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That is almost exactly the case Bronte - but without wanting to divulge too much information there was an emergency with the property. This emergency required a payment from us to cover costs. We received no details that the emergency has been rectified and no receipts - although we assume so, as the tenant continues to settle the rent. As I mentioned we are non resident, and not knowing if this emergency had been settled or not caused a certain level of stress to both my wife and I.

Nonetheless, I would consider it proper business etiquette to respond to a clients email (or return voicemails) when a query posed - I don't think the service I have received is good enough to warrant the expense.

There is a monthly fee which the estate agent deducts from the rent. I do not believe we have a year long contract as we did not select this duration parameter on the signed contract although this does not matter in our case as we plan on severing ties on the 1 year anniversary of the contract.
 
walletpod said:
. This emergency required a payment from us to cover costs. We received no details that the emergency has been rectified and no receipts - although we assume so, as the tenant continues to settle the rent. As I mentioned we are non resident, and not knowing if this emergency had been settled or not caused a certain level of stress to both my wife and I.

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Whether you had an agent or not you would have had to pay for the emergency, but currently you have no issue and tenant is paying his rent and agent is handing over the rent, all good. Plus you didn't have to deal with the emergency, that's good too because that is what you are paying the agent for, how would you have solved the emergency without the agent?

Is is wrong of the agent not to supply you with a receipt, but when next in Ireland you can tackle him on this. He must have paid for the costs of the emergency and you have proof (cheque/bank transfer) that you transferrred money to him and emails of the reason so you have a trail for revenue.
 
shesells said:
Generally there are separate letting and management fees. OP do you have a contract/description of what the management entails (dealing with tenant queries, organising repairs etc?) Also why is the tenant paying rent to the agent rather than directly to you. We use letting agents (but never their management services) yet the rent has always been paid directly to us.
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Apologies about the late reply. There is a loose description of what is expected in the instance of a tenant query / repairs i.e. any repairs etc up to a certain EUR amount / threshold are solved without the involvement of the Landlord and that a report is issued to the Landlord once the repairs are done. We never received this report.

I'm not sure why the rent isn't paid direct to our account - this is my first time letting a property. I suspect it is a control that the Letting Agents have in place to ensure that they receive their monthly fee on time.
 
Bronte said:
Whether you had an agent or not you would have had to pay for the emergency, but currently you have no issue and tenant is paying his rent and agent is handing over the rent, all good. Plus you didn't have to deal with the emergency, that's good too because that is what you are paying the agent for, how would you have solved the emergency without the agent?

Is is wrong of the agent not to supply you with a receipt, but when next in Ireland you can tackle him on this. He must have paid for the costs of the emergency and you have proof (cheque/bank transfer) that you transferrred money to him and emails of the reason so you have a trail for revenue.
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Hi Bronte - sorry about the late response. I guess we had a bad feeling about this arrangement since the emergency and how it was handled. We're not professional / sophisticated Landlords. I think the term I'd use is that we're "reluctant landlords".

In any case I wanted to update this post - we did not receive this months rent. We have tried to contact the Letting Agent since the 6th of March. A combination of emails / phone calls / voicemails. Finally on Thursday last we made contact with the LA's office - and were told someone would look into the query and call us back. No phone call back.

We finally made contact today and queried the rent payment. Our first question was "is the tenant late with the rent" - answer was no. There was a problem with the LA's computer or some other gibberish.

This is the nail in the coffin for us. One of the base responsibilites of a LA should be to collect and deliver rent - I get the feeling that if we did not instigate the query about this months rent, we would have not received the rent at all. I cannot justify a 130 EUR a month charge for such a service. I just don't have that cash to spare. We're very lucky that we have a family member returning to the area where our property is - and we'd feel comefortable knowing that any further emergencies / queries can be dealt with adequately in our absence by a trusted source. I know there are scores of hard working and professional LA's out there - I think we were just unlucky in this instance.
 
You need to immediately contact the tenant and advise them that now that as you have now returned to Ireland, the rent should be paid directly into your account. Obviously, give them your account details (preferably open a new account for the rented property. Also advise them that you will be dealing with the property and not the agent. Provide them with a contact number for emergency calls (as required in the RTA 2004).
Then deal with the agency problem. Not knowing the details of your contract with them, you may have to continue paying their monthly fee, but at least you will now have full and absolute control.

The problem with the late rent may be due to the agency or tenant.

However, you do need to be aware of all the landlord's responsibilities and obligations, especially as regards what to do in the case of:
late rent,
if the tenant wants to break the lease,
anti-social behaviour,
deposit return,
removal / eviction of tenant,
Tenant's Part 4 rights,
difference between Part4 leases and Fixed term leases (and periodic leases)
lease assignments,
renewing a lease,
over-holding,
tenant's rights and obligations etc.

As your are an unwilling landlord and this is your first time, you need to be aware of the problems that can occur when letting and how to resolve them legally.
 
It sounds like you have a rolling monthly arrangement, with no specific contract duration. As you no longer need or want the services of the letting agent, I suggest you give them written notice of termination of the arrangement, and don't forget to give your reasons (lack of response, receipts, communication, and then finally rent!).

Write to your tenant, inform them of the development (don't include your dissatisfaction with the letting agent - no need for the tenant to worry about that), with new bank and contact details, and include a new letting agreement (or an update of the old one, with references to the LA edited out). If you've had problems communicating with the LA, it's a good bet the tenant will have had the same, and will likely be happier with you as the contact than the LA.
 
If you create a new lease agreement, you will have to pay a new registration fee to the PRTB.
Just write to the tenant (keep a copy for your records) advising the tenant that as you have now returned to Ireland, you will be dealing with the situation yourself and that the agent is no longer employed by you. Provide a new (your) emergency contact number and an address for any written communication as is required by law.
 
That can't be right that one has to register again with the PRTB, it's the same tenants not new ones. You are allowed to update data on your PRTB registration, such as change of rent etc without any charge.

Don't forget to pay the NPPR and the new household charge and have a read of the landlord thread for other tips.
 
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