Tomorrow’s episode of Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords will feature a landlord who protested up and down their local high street against a letting agent, who allegedly owes the landlord £20,000.
The Channel 5 programme will show the rogue agent, which gives the sector a bad name.
Landlord to Protest Against Agent on TV
According to evictions specialist Landlord Action, the agent stopped paying rent to the landlord, Margaret Wilson, who owns two rental properties in Oxfordshire.
Landlord Action said that Wilson put her properties under the management of letting agent Carl Afilaka, of Christopher Stanley Lettings in Bicester, Oxfordshire.
Landlord Action claims: “Things went well for the first year but then 12 months ago, despite the tenants regularly paying the rent to the agent, Mr. Afilaka stopped paying Margaret the rent owed to her. Now Margaret is out of pocket to the tune of £20,000.
“A quick view of Christopher Stanley Lettings Ltd on allAgents reveals that Mrs Wilson is not the first person to be defrauded by this man, with claims of deposits not registered with a tenancy deposit scheme, not returning deposits, non-payment to contractors and violent behaviour.”
Landlord Action continues: “At her wits end, Margaret tried everything to get the agent to pay up; she contacted Trading Standards and even called the police, with no success. After months of desperate phone calls and emails to the agent without response, Margaret contacted Landlord Action’s debt recovery department.
“With founder Paul Shamplina at her side ready to serve a letter before action for the outstanding monies, Margaret finally gets to confront Carl Afilaka face-to-face.”1
Shamplina comments: “For a number of years, our debt recovery department has been taking legal action for landlords against rogue agents that withhold rent owed to landlords for their own business and cash flow purposes.
“It infuriates me that any agent is able to get away with this whilst causing so much distress to a landlord. It can often discourage them from using a good reputable letting agent in the future.”1
allAgents have ranked Christopher Stanley Lettings 13,886 out of 14,210 agents in the UK.
The show airs tomorrow, Wednesday 8th July, on Channel 5 at 9pm.
1 http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/landlord-protests-against-agent-by-walking-high-street-with-sandwich-board/
