Here is a sad story, brought by David to the Blog clinic:
My son is at university and he and four other friends rented a house from a property agent in Durham.
When they left the property they verbally agreed with the new tenants that they would leave some personal belongings in the under stairs cupboard and collect them on the first day of the new term.
In the meantime, the new tenants apparently contacted the landlord’s agent and asked for the cupboard to be cleared and the landlord agent arranged this.
The agent made no attempt to contact my son or his friends and simply disposed of the goods worth over £800 and contained university books and notes as well as a couple of high value items.
Do my son and friends have any claim against the agent for not making a reasonable attempt to contact any of the previous tenants given these items were in a cupboard and could have just been forgotten? The agent is blaming the new tenants saying they simply carried out the instruction to dispose of the stuff.
What an awful story! (And an awful warning too – never trust students!) I certainly think that SOMEONE should be liable.
My view is that it is the new tenants. If they agreed to allow the things to stay there, then they can’t just turn around and dispose of them if they change their mind.
I am not sure that the agent is liable as they were not the ones who agreed that the stuff should stay there. Although I think their conduct is disgraceful and certainly a complaint should be made, if they belong to any professional organisations.
What does anyone else think?
Update from David:
Thanks for this. Things have moved on a bit in as much as my son has spoken to the new tenants and they have signed a statement to confirm that they did not request the removal of the possessions as first thought.
They asked the agent for some repairs to be carried out and the agent asked if they had any personal belongings in the house and they said no. The agent then simply removed and disposed of my sons possessions in the cupboard without any attempt to contact my son or co-tenants.
We have now asked the Property Ombudsman to look at the case.
Well what an awful situation to find yourself in. It may be worth approaching the agency and asking them what they did to ensure that the property was suitable to be disposed of?
Presumably the property had your son’s name on?
Will be interested to hear what happens
Good luck
The landlord is under a legal obligation to take care of tenant’s possessions unless reasonable efforts to trace the tenant or owner of the goods fail.
In general sense though the people in the wrong are the new tenants who agreed (I guess verbaly) to store goods and then did not. & not the landlord who moved what (I guess) he thought was abandoned goods. Afterall he woudnt have receaved calls as the students did not know of the issue until the next term.
I woudnt say its an “awful story” – the world is not a nice place and leaving goods worth £800 with stangers is ignorance to that fact.
Thanks both of you for your comments. We now have an update from David which I have added to the post.
@YesAdam – You are right about the legal obligation – in fact this has been discussed by Tessa on this very site
http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2010/05/26/tenancy-agreements-31-days-of-tips-day-26-left-items/
:)
Having worked in the public sector for some 24 years dealing with cases just like this on a variety of scales, I know only too well the antics people get up to and how they try to avoid their responsibility. You make a good point YesAdam about the world not being a nice place, but there is a process that could and should be followed to assist with Davids case. Depending on what stage David is at (I note TPOS is mentioned) I would suggest:
1. Ask the agent what steps were taken to avoid this issue (quoting the above information from Tessa but not directing them to this article)
2. If David thinks they have breached the article linked above ask for their complaints procedure
3. If the complaint is not upheld, or not to David’s satisfaction, take it to the TPOS. Before he does he would need to check with the TPOS that are actually registered, despite what logo’s they display on their website! http://www.tpos.co.uk/find-member.php
4. If they are registered let the TPOS deal otherwise it is a case for trading standards to investigate for not registering with the TPOS or the Property Ombudsmen – And their failures
I have recently been trying to buy a property to let out. Te deal fell through at the final hour, I pulled out and this is now subject to litigation as the Estate Agent has failed in their obligations under the Misleading actions (regulation 5)of the Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations. Unfortunately for them, they are not registered with the TPOS (Or the Omdusmen Services)as advertised on their site, but this is a whole new story – But one I am dealing with :)
I like items like this as it keeps the old grey matter in good working order :)
The legislation that covers this is the Torts (Intereference with Goods) Act 1977, Schedule 1, part 1.
Before taking action I would want to hear from the agents about it to find out what attempts they made, if any to contact the owners if the new tenants clearly told them that the goods werent theirs. I would presume the new tenants would have advised them that they belonged to the outgoing tenants and being students I would imagine their parents were guarantors and therefore easy to contact.
Also it is clear that the goods left werent just bin liners full of old clothes and had some value.
My advice would be take it to the small claims court. I would imagine it is relatively straight forward,now you have the other tenant’s testimony although I know that phrase should never be used in relation to anything legal