Tax statement from letting agents?

Tax statement from letting agents?

13:04 PM, 25th May 2016, About 8 years ago 8

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My new letting agents normally sends me a monthly rental statement, but on my May 2016 statement there’s a deduction of £75.00 plus vat. legal

I did received an A4 sheet of paper from the letting agent with the last six months rental and deduction as a tax statement, but thought nothing of it! I questioned the amount with the letting agents and stated I have an accountant who deals with my tax issues and had not requested these details?

The letting agents says it was part of the agreement I agreed and signed. I stated the monthly statement that’s all I needed and I should have been told of this amount before signing. Letting agents replied they are unable to pay back the £90.00 but in future will not take this payment!

Can anyone say if this is legal?

Sincerely

Rudolph


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Comments

Neil Patterson

13:06 PM, 25th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Hi Rudolph,

Can I ask what it says about this in your contract?

Mark Trenfield

19:11 PM, 25th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Hi Rudolph
Having once been a Letting Agent myself (now retired) - I would comment that a £75 charge for an annual tax statement that YOU requested is probably towards the upper limit of fair. .... but fair all the same (as they have had to do some work / incur some cost in preparing this statement on your behalf). Even if it was automatically printed out by a computer system - they have had to pay for that computer system in the first place.

However, since you did _not_ request the statement - irrespective of what you might or might not have signed - I would have thought that this "value added annual tax statement service for clients choosing their property management service" - would be FREE.

Furthermore, now that you are raising a query against this charge with the Letting Agent - surely they are not foolish enough to want to lose a landlord client in a minor dispute over a £75 statement fee?

In summary - my advice - demand to speak to the owner of the business and tell them that if they don't refund the fee you will take your business elsewhere!

Good Luck

Mark

Neil Patterson

8:13 AM, 26th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Hi Rudolph,

As the clause in your contract states you will be charges this if you are not resident in the UK and need a tax statement I would point out it is in error and as Mark said above no one is going to want to lose a good customer over something as small as this.

If not you can complain to the Redress Scheme the agents belong to and worse case scenario small claims, but that would be major overkill to let it get that far.

Malcolm Hill

11:27 AM, 26th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Hi Rudolph this happened to me several years ago when I passed the management of my portfolio over the a large national company.I had already had a deal with them in writing but no actual contract as I was able to get far better terms than their normal standard contract.Then when the first tax year came around they sent me a tax return on all my properties. It was wrong in any case as they had made it on a monthly basis and it didn't take into account several rents that had been paid after the end of March but before the start of the tax year.So I contacted them re this and during the conversation they mentioned an annual charge for this service of £60. As I am more than capable of doing my own tax return and had already got the figures on a spread sheet I said I didn't want their statements and they refunded the charge and when the following year when I had transferred all the properties into my wifes name they repeated the performance again with incorrect data and again they refunded the charge and they haven't bothered us since. Suggest you just ask for a refund and threaten to change to another agency if they don't.The wont to lose you for £75.
regards malcolm

Penniless Landlord

18:30 PM, 26th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Hi
My wife had exactly the same thing from her agent. She challenged it and they refunded her the money.

If my memory serves me correctly they claimed it was a new feature of their service due to the requests of their clients. My wife pointed out that she had not requested it and that since we had all the monthly statements and kept accounts up to date monthly she did not need this. They have flagged it up on their system and refunded the amount.

Sounds like you may be using the same agents, so just be polite and query it.

Nick.

Peter Hindley

19:33 PM, 26th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Countrywide regularly charge me this. I regularly challenge it & decline the service, and they refund in full. Seems to happen every year for one of my properties.

Rudolph Banton

21:04 PM, 26th May 2016, About 8 years ago

I have tried to attached a copy of the agreement from Haarts but having some difficulties. They seem to be asking for me to look at yet more policy documents and refusing a refund. I said I already have the monthly statement requested and any payments should not be hidden in small prints. Also if that's the case we should part our ways. Now waiting their response.

Cheers all for your valid response!

Rudolph Banton

10:45 AM, 28th May 2016, About 8 years ago

The letting agent has agreed to refund the full amount of charges they took, that is hidden in the small prints of their letting policy document!

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