UK Landlord Forum / Life

I went into a 3 year tenancy agreement with one year break clause, I was assuming The agent will charge me yearly fees (atleast for the first year with break clause !),
Instead Letting Agent charged me 3 year fees of £8000!!! What can I do? I called the Agency management and complained to no avail!!! Can I take them to court, whats the ruling on this?
Term has 1 year break clause, so tenant could leave, leaving me at a loss!!! 
I also asked the agent if the tenant leaves after 1st year, will they refund the 2 years, and he went quiet, no answer!
PLEASE HELP WITH ANY ADVICE !!!

Eight THOUSAND pounds?  Was this a residential tenancy or commercial?

You assumed? Why would you (need to) assume anything? What was the terms of the contract that you agreed with the LA when you instructed them to be your agent to let the property out?

It was a residential tenancy!
And there was no agreement between myself and the agency, they never sent me any doc. Only agreement is in relation to tenancy with tenant

There must be some kind of agreement, even if it's only verbal, unless someone just decided unilaterally to let your property out without you knowing about it. Something made you assume yearly fee, what was it? Was there an advert, a leaflet, a conversation you had with them, etc.?

This is a residential property in London. Yes there was a verbal agreement between me (landlord) and Agent that they can advertise my property and if they find as tenant, they get commission on annual rental value.
The term for tenancy was 3 years. In written agreement between me and tenant (drafted by agent), I specifically asked agent to ensure for first year break clause (so as to ensure) that the agent cannot charge me 3 year commissions! Tenant is a Property company, and they agreed to pay 3 months advance rent, and deposit amounting to 10k. Once this got paid when tenant received keys, Agent very craftily deducted 8k and paid me 2k!

The Agent will shrug their shoulders at the "craftily" comment and tell you, with a straight face, that this is how it works, this is how it always works, you are just weird for questioning it. I'd never let an Agent do work for me before seeing their Terms of Business... I did this very recently with a new Agent for a specific property, I went through their standard Terms of Business and edited the PDF with quite a lot of red and strike-outs... sending it back saying I would sign if all that was agreed, as we already had a Tenant lined-up and it was basic Tenant Find they were fine with it... one I delighted in striking-out was the fact they could take another £280 'admin. fee' off me next year if the same Tenants extended their stay, but the Agent did nothing to earn that. The moral of this story is more simple though... I think... don't be going around doing long-term tenancies like that. I cannot imagine you are forced into doing 3 year ASTs in London - it's a hot-bed, you can do whatever you like (within reason)... there's no benefit to this, don't talk to me about security, you don't need it in London, or with any property that is sufficiently good, or reasonably priced.

Sounds totally out of order. They are testing you. Write them a nice letter, if they dont respond take out a small claim https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money. It may scare them into coming to an acceptable arrangement. Take it carefully, but dont let them get alway with it.

The agent's terms and conditions will be available on their web site and they will claim that you agreed to them when you agreed to their supplying their services.

If the tenant is a "property company" they've done you in other ways than the commission.

Good luck.

Only if they referred to or attached their T&C in their communications. Just having it on their website is not enough.

Sent them a kind email, no response! Thanks Shedloads! im going legal with this.