Landlord - Letting Agent Debt

I am a landlord who has just sacked my letting agents for not paying rent due on time and for not providing timely and complete income and expenditure records.
Now that I have the records I have gone through them and have found that they each month they owed substantial funds to me after all expenses were deducted.


1. Does the Late Payment of Commercial Act 1998 apply to this case.
2. Does the compensation portion apply for each month that money was oustanding as that was every month for six years.
3. I am having difficulty calculating the interest to charge as money was lump sum payments were flowing through the account most months. Are there practitioners familiar with this legislation who can do the calculations for us? I have prepared a spreadsheet of rent due etc.
4. As I was never informed of what rent had been paid and was due I was never able to issue an invoice or demand. Does this effect any claim?
5. Final complication - we had a verbal contract to pay mid month each month. Does this count as the due date?
6. As I have only just received the complete statements of income and expenditure and the contract started in 2003 I presume I can use the legislation for the full six years without being statute barred.

Many thanks, Martin

Martin wrote:

I am a landlord who has just sacked my letting agents for not paying rent due on time and for not providing timely and complete income and expenditure records.
Now that I have the records I have gone through them and have found that they each month they owed substantial funds to me after all expenses were deducted.

Hi Martin, welcome to the board. We will attempt to answer your questions but please be aware this is in no way to be considered legal advice! Now we have that out of the way...

Martin wrote:

1. Does the Late Payment of Commercial Act 1998 apply to this case.

We would say yes it does, you are running a commercial enterprise and the letting agent was effectively supplying you a business service.

The issue will be if you can retrospectively claim charges on monies that have yet to be paid in full. Again we would say you are within your rights to do so.

Martin wrote:

2. Does the compensation portion apply for each month that money was oustanding as that was every month for six years.

If money was owed it would apply to every day outstanding.

Martin wrote:

3. I am having difficulty calculating the interest to charge as money was lump sum payments were flowing through the account most months. Are there practitioners familiar with this legislation who can do the calculations for us? I have prepared a spreadsheet of rent due etc.

We are sure you could find someone, how much they charge is anyone's guess. You may be best served designating a specific day every month as payment day and calculating the interest on each months shortfall individually.

Martin wrote:

4. As I was never informed of what rent had been paid and was due I was never able to issue an invoice or demand. Does this effect any claim?

Debatable, as far as we are aware no legal obligation to send an invoice exists, it is simply something a business does.

You may want to send a final invoice to the agent with every payment shortfall and breakdown of charges just so everyone is aware of the situation.

Martin wrote:

5. Final complication - we had a verbal contract to pay mid month each month. Does this count as the due date?

Yes it does, do you have any documents/emails to confirm this payment arrangement? If not the default is 30 day payment terms and these would probably apply.

Martin wrote:

6. As I have only just received the complete statements of income and expenditure and the contract started in 2003 I presume I can use the legislation for the full six years without being statute barred.

You can go back longer than six years in your initial "chase" but you can not issue proceedings for any amount more than six years old. Personally we would calculate the charges etc on every payment back to 2003 and use this as a starting point for negotiations.


Hope that helps,
Safe Collections