We are landlords who engaged a letting agent to let and manage our property whilst we were living abroad. The agents created a 5 year lease with which we agreed on the basis of annual condition surveys and agreed rent review. The agent ignored our instructions completely and when challenged whether the lease was legal (it was a Short Hold Tenancy agreement with a handwritten clause for 5 years) the agent claimed it was legal because they had checked by telephone with Propertymark but could produce no evidence of such a phone call or of the legal opinion. We complained to the Property Ombudsman who after several weeks decided the case should go for adjudication. After 3 months we received the draft "judgement", a mere 4 pages of poor and contradictory argument, with even the address of the property involved incorrect. We sent detailed amendments and within days received the final decision with the address corrected and only one other word in the text changed. The final report was accompanied by a letter saying we had no right of appeal against the judgment and no further correspondence would be accepted. Two direct quotes illustrate the poor quality of the Ombudsman work " I would make it clear that I have not, however, made a determination on the legal status of the Tenancy Agreement" "I am critical that (the agent) have not been able to evidence a record of the advice they obtained from Propertymark. Despite this, I am satisfied that ( the agent) responded appropriately to the Complainants' specific request for clarification and have provided reasonable guidance in the circumstances."We have found the complaints process slow and inefficient and only to ready to accept the agents argument even though unsupported by any evidence. The Property Ombudsman is limited in its powers and scope in such a way as to pose no threat or scrutiny to or of estate agents even when they are clearly in breach of their own code of practice.
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