Agency witholding rent

[thesaint]

Do you know the difference between what you received, and what you should have?
What does your agreement with the agent state?
Have you written to the relevant redress scheme that the agency belongs to?

[jpkeates]

Assuming there's nothing missing from the story - they simply can't do that.
That's simply fraud.

I would start by reporting them to the police.
The police won't be interested (and will tell you it's a civil matter) because fraud is a pain in the bum to a policeman.
Try and politely persist, because while you will have to recover the money as a civil matter what the agent is doing is "abuse of position, or false representation, or prejudicing someone's rights for personal gain"
I.e. fraud.
Try and, at very least, get them to record it and give you a crime number.

Then you send a letter before action to the agent, requiring the return of the money fraudulently withheld from you (assuming that you don't want to return the increased rent to the state - guessed not).
You may want to mention that while you may take action to recover the funds, you suspect that their actions might be criminal so they may wish to take legal advice before responding.
Then Money Claim Online for the total amount.

Once you have the money, I'd tell the council what the agent did.

[londonian]

Hi,

It was a fully managed deal. Although they never actually did anything!

[Wannadonnadoodah]

Is this a guaranteed rent scheme or just a normal management arrangement?

[londonian]

Hi,

Can someone please offer advise?

I had an LHA tenant in my property. The agency applied to the LHA to increase the rent without my knowledge last year. The tenant was then receiving an increased amount of rent and paying it to the agency who kept the increase for themselves. Once I found out about the increase, I asked them for it. They claim that as my contract was not renewed they are entitled to keep it! I don't believe that for one moment they can make money off my property without me knowing. Any advise on how to make them pay up would be much appreciated.