Rent Arrears

iahavenoname

Hey All

I have a bit of an issue that i'm not to sure how to resolve.

Back in Apr 24, 2019 i was in rent arrears and reached out to the letting agency to confirm what the balance was. This was completely my fault and they where 100% right. I confirmed the outstanding balance at the time and paid it

I then received an email in Feb from them stating that in 2017 they incorrectly applied one of my rent payments twice in their accounts and that the previous balance they had said was incorrect and that i now owed them more money.

They sent me an email and a letter informing me of the rent arrears. I replied to the email stating this was there error and that the responsibility should be on them not me. They never responded to this.

They have now sent me a letter saying if i don't pay the money within 35 days they will serve me with a notice of termination.

Am i in a situation where i'm going to have to pay this money? I've been in the apartment over 8 years

Are you saying their amended calculations are incorrect and that you have paid all the rent for every month you have lived there, or are you saying that due to a mistake, you are entitled to pay one month less than you are legally required to pay for rental of a property?

You will have to check your rental agreement and The Residential Tenancies Act in relation to payment of rent, rent arrears and serving of notices. This should tell you what you need to know.

Samuel T. Cogley

You need to pay it, but as long as you engage in some form you're unlikely to have a problem. Pay it little by little if you need to.

meijin

iahavenoname wrote: »

Back in Apr 24, 2019 i was in rent arrears and reached out to the letting agency to confirm what the balance was. This was completely my fault and they where 100% right. I confirmed the outstanding balance at the time and paid it

I then received an email in Feb from them stating that in 2017 they incorrectly applied one of my rent payments twice in their accounts and that the previous balance they had said was incorrect and that i now owed them more money.

you either owe them money, or you don't - which one is it?
did you check all the calculations yourself?

what they confirmed in 2019 doesn't really matter

Shelflife

Put it this way, if they wrote to you to tell you that they had miscalculated and you had overpaid but as it was their error from a long time ago they were going to hang on to the money. How would you feel about that ?

PetitPois89

It’s a clerical error. You’re in arrears so need to make payment or they’re entitled to issue the warning notice and subsequent termination notice if you fail to pay.

If you won’t be able to afford the full amount in one go try negotiate a payment plan to pay a portion each month, most agents/landlords will work with you on this

Jmc25

Sounds like you owe it alright but their attitude here about the notice of termination sounds counterproductive - you could stop paying altogether and overhold and cost them/the landlord a lot more than a month's rent (which, if it took them three years to notice is clearly small change to them/the landlord anyway).

If you engage with them and offer to pay month by month over a year or so then they'd be fairly unreasonable not to accept that.

Peregrinus

If I understand the OP correctly, this wasn't just the rental agency's mistake; it was also his. Aware the he was in arrears he asked the agency to calculate the amount due. They sent him a calculation and . . . .

iahavenoname wrote: »

. . . I confirmed the outstanding balance at the time and paid it.

In other words, he made the same mistake that they did; he failed to spot that he had been given double credit for one payment.

So the question is, if the parties to a transaction make a mutual mistake of this kind, are they both bound by it? And the answer is, generally, no; a mistake of this kind can ordinarily be corrected at the instance of either party.