Q. I left the country last winter for a year to go and work overseas and rented my apartment out through a company I had never heard of before but never the less seemed competent enough and they found me a tenant straight away. However, I am now due to return to the UK in October and contacted my Agent to make sure my tenants vacate in time for my return, only to be told that the first tenant left after six months so they have found a new tenant that has a year’s contract till May 2012?! As you can imagine I am completely shaken by this as I never agreed to a changeover of tenant and certainly not to another year on the tenancy. Having spoken directly to the tenant himself I have also now discovered that they have moved all my furniture out of the flat as he wanted it ‘unfurnished’. What am I to do, I am just horrified? I have no idea what they have done with my furniture?
A. Unfortunately there are still some very unscrupulous agents operating and as long as people continue to be so busy and wrapped up in their own lives to check things like this thoroughly they will continue to thrive. This is absolutely unethical and the first thing you need to do is contact the Property Ombudsman to report them to prevent this from happening to anyone else. Next you need to find out if you gave them permission in writing to sign the tenancy agreement on your behalf either via an email or by signing their terms and conditions if it had a clause containing authorisation for them to sign on your behalf. If you have not signed anything to that effect then that would make the current contract – null and void. Therefore, you would be able to serve notice on the tenants and get them out. If they did have your authority then I am afraid you are going to have to hope that you had a six month break clause in the agreement otherwise you will not be able to get them out until the end of the tenancy. Secondly with regards to your furniture, contact the police and let them know that the agent has removed your possessions without your consent. This is illegal if they did not have your prior consent to store it even if they are intending to put it back at the end of the tenancy. On a final note if your ever decide to rent again do use Agents that are members of either Arla or the NAEA, members of these bodies are regulated and using them will protect you from facing this type of nightmare scenario happening again!