Im a non resident landlord: Letting agent/property mgr witholding rent for 5mo now.

Hi,

I would be very grateful for advise on this matter as I have no idea what to do.

I am a non-resident landlord. I hired an estate agent to let and manage the property. We have had nothing but trouble with him for the beginning but we are so far away and have nobody to help us out so had to keep him. He has always been slow to put the rent into our bank account.

However, he stopped paying us entirely nearly 5 months ago without explanation. We have been emailing and phoning and he finally told us this week that he had to withold tax and that he was waiting to see what our accountant would say. We told him that he was only asked to withold 20 % and to please put the rest into the account and he refused until he hears from our accountant. So I got onto the accountant who has sent him the amount and now we can't get him at all.

We are due another rent installment that the tenants pay on the 1st each month. I have 3 questions around this.

1) can we contact the tenants and redirect their rent to prevent more of our money that we need to pay the mortgage being held by this man. As in are there contractual obligations?

2) How can we get our money back from this man? He has been stalling and fobbing us off.

3) Is he liable if that tax is not paid to revenue? can this come back on us?

Does anyone have any advice

Much appreciated

Ari

Re: Letting agent and property manager witholding rent

Why would your estate/letting agent be withholding Tax for you???

Surely your tax affairs are between you and Revenue.
I don't understand what tax is being withheld here.
He does not have to pay tax on your behalf, not sure what he's talking about.

Re: Letting agent and property manager witholding rent

sadie said:

Why would your estate/letting agent be withholding Tax for you??? ...

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An agent collecting rents on behalf of a non-resident landlord is obliged by the Revenue to deduct 20% of the rents and return this directly to the Revenue - they get special PPSNs for this. Tenants paying rents to non-resident landlords have the same obligations.

Re: Letting agent and property manager witholding rent

Is there a contract with an escape clause?

Re: Letting agent and property manager witholding rent

You say that you hired the agent to let and manage the property for you. Were they actually registered with Revenue to act as collecting agent on your behalf?

A tenant is required to withhold tax at 20% from rents paid to a non resident landlord. However if that non resident landlord has an Irish resident collecting agent then the 20% withholding does not apply.

The registering of a colleting agent is very straightforward and it does not have to be an estate/letting agent. The collecting agent receives rent on behalf of the non resident landlord and files a tax return in respect of the rents received. Do you have a collecting agent?

Even if you don't have a collecting agent, the maximum that should be withheld from the rent is 20%.

You say that the estate agent has not passed on any rent for 5 months. You need to take action immediately. It sounds to me that you are dealing with a cowboy agent and you need to sort the situation out. I would certainly make arrangements to receive the rent directly and wouldn't let any more good money follow bad. Then you need to get the past 5 months rent off of him.

My first point of call would be to do everything you can to contact him dierectly and explain that you intend notifying police/taking legal action, this should hopefully be enough to get the money owed to you.

I deal with the tax affairs of anumber of non resident landlords so PM if you need any assitance with this matter.

Re: Letting agent and property manager witholding rent

mathepac said:

An agent collecting rents on behalf of a non-resident landlord is obliged by the Revenue to deduct 20% of the rents and return this directly to the Revenue - they get special PPSNs for this. Tenants paying rents to non-resident landlords have the same obligations.

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The is correct.

Re: Im a non resident landlord: Letting agent/property mgr witholding rent for 5mo no

There is only one way to sort this out and that's to to fly back and sort it out. How much has 5 months cost you? No agent should keep 5 months rent, it's plain and simple theft (he can take off the 20% tax but I wouldn't like to be explaining to revenue that the agent took the 20% when agent has disappeared into the wilderness). You can try and get the tenant's to pay you directly by direct debt, but you need someone to manage the property for you on the ground. If you yourself can't sort it out and get a better agent or family member then you need to consider selling the property.

Who is the letting agent?

RScott said:

Who is the letting agent?

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Does it matter?

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aj
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