UK Landlord Forum / Life

We rent out our UK property via a Lettings Agent. 

From the get go, the Agent's "management" of the property has been pretty poor.

- they've not contacted us if work's needed to be done (we've only found out about it when we've received less money and have had to chase them to find out why and get copies of invoices);

- when they do advise work is required, the quotes they've provided bear no relation to the work we've been informed was required;

- they opened a new office in our town and our agreement moved to the new office, despite my father-in-law having been informed our agreement would not be transferred as we are an existing client;

- despite being given a month's notice about a change to our bank details, they paid our money into the wrong account (and then said it was due to the tenant having paid to the previous office our agreement was held by);

- they held back our float from the money that they paid us, as they didn't think we had paid it (despite knowing we are existing clients, transferred from another of their branches);

- and the best!  We advised we wanted a 12 month lease.  The tenant told us, via text, she was happy to sign a 12 month lease.  They eventually (2 weeks after the lease renewal date!) emailed the lease renewal paperwork, which we duly signed and posted back to the agents.  We're now being told (almost 7 months later) that the tenant didn't return the signed lease paperwork and so is now on a periodic lease, in which she can give us 1 month notice if she wants to leave, but we have to give 2 months notice if we want her to leave. 

The only good thing about that last point is that we don't have to wait till November to put the house on the market and, if we sell, we can stop paying the agents their fees once it goes through.  The downside is we are left wondering if they would have ever told us that the tenant was now on a periodic lease!

Has anyone ever come across service as bad as this (I could go on, but think I've done a pretty long essay as it is)?  How would you go about making a formal complaint to the Agent (and, does anyone have a letter template I could use)?

Many thanks,