UK Landlord Forum / Life

We are concerned about some changes that have been made to our property without our consent....I have been lucky enough to speak with the tenants of the property who have now moved out...they have told me that they were given permission to make alterations to our house by our agent and yet we were not informed of the changes either until some time later during their tenancy or not at all...we have just received our checkout inventory which states that a bedroom has been repainted a different colour without our knowledge..also apart from the front door lock being changed without consent..curtain poles being put up...being charged for a fuse box to be fixed and the money deducted without our knowledge....we were asked if the tenants could either have our gas fire fixed at a cost of £40 or have it capped off as it was cold and they had an electric fire that they wished to use...we gave permission to do either at a cost to ourselves of course but received no comeback following the email ...I even emailed the agent to ask what had happened to the fire but had no reply so assumed that no changes had been made...we were not charged for any changes........we were eventually told by another agent that had been to the house some months later that the tenants had actually removed our fire and put in their own electric fire..that the hole in the wall had been bricked up and concreted over..so I asked our agent if this was true...he confirmed that the tenants had actually put in their own fire but that nothing had been bricked up or concreted he stated that the old fire was in the loft and could be replaced...this may seem naive but I thought when I was asked if the fire could be capped off that they meant just to stop the flow of gas as the fire would not be used...not that they would have to remove the fire to do so..am not even sure if you have to remove the fire first or if the fire can be capped off and the fire left alone...we thought that the electric fire the tenants had was just an ordinary electric plug in fire..there was never any mention of removing our fire...of concreting over holes in walls..of removing the marble surround which has now been replaced...obviously if you remove a gas fire then there will be a hole left in the back of the wall...once the tenants realised this they informed the agent..if this is not covered then anything can enter the hole from the outside so they went ahead themselves with the work...they state that they had permission to do this...but my point here is that we have not been informed of these changes adequately..we now realise that this could be the reason that our agent has refused to send photos of the property...we have now been told by the agent that the fireplace is an issue...he states that there is no point in replacing the fire as it does not work although at first he asked us if we would consent to it being fixed....if it is not replaced we will then be left with a hole in the wall...this has already been an issue with someone who was interested with renting the house but requested a drop in rent due to the state of the fireplace...the old tenants told us that the fire could not be replaced as it is in a thousand pieces in the loft...we now feel that the hole should be completely filled in and the wall re-plastered at the agents expense as he gave permission for these changes without our consent and did not let us know what had happened to the fireplace when we asked...his attitude is appalling as when we asked him why we had not been told that the tenants had put up curtain poles and made changes to the fire etc he has stated that we are a long way away...in Australia...and would have consented to the changes anyway...we know however that he will probably bill the old tenants for the work to put right the wall and to have the bedroom repainted back to its previous condition which seems unfair....what do you think!!! any advice would be most helpful...

Trace1

Good morning Trace1,

This is a problem that seems to happen constantly and it is agents like this that give the rest of us a bad name. Just because of your geographical location doesn't me that you can't have control over YOUR property. You instruct an agent to work in your best interests and to help facilitate communication between your tenants and yourself. That unfortunately doesn't seem to be the case you have experienced.

I feel by the information you have written that your agent has been negligent and has not worked in your best interest. Their failure to keep you informed on what transpires at your property and as you believe giving consent to make alterations without your prior agreement or knowledge means they have not carried out the service you required. This has left you with a property that has decreased in value and needs cosmetic work to get the property back to its original condition. Now if you would have said the agent had no knowledge of the changes to the property then the responsibility would most probably fall to the tenants, however i would think your agent would have carried out inspections on the property and picked up on the changes, but the responsibility would still fall to the tenants. However you agent has accept responsibility and acknowledged they knew of some of the changes which means they are responsible to inform you of the tenants intentions. Giving permission without your consent means they are not acting for you but of their own accord, which makes them liable for and damage.

I would firstly find out if they are a member of any governing body such as ARLA or TPOS. I would compile all your evidence and send it to them. They will investigate and advice you on what to do next. But i would be believe you have a case against this agent and if you are out of pocket due to their negligence then you should be able to claim compensation from them.

I hope this helps you and wish you all the luck in resolving this.