Not sure if this is the right subject, sorry Keith if its not! Listen up people, a big word of warning here...
Having been told by this particular emlak/estate agent, that "nobody reads the Calis Forum anyway", he will not have anything to worry about when I post a warning about him here :-) An English agent who works for Let's Sell Properties, has been "helping" us with finding a tenant to rent our villa, until such time as it is sold.
He did find us a tenant, a very nice lady, who has been unwittingly propelled into the mire left behind by the recently-departed tenants, whom we found privately. The English agent agreed with us, (in fact, he offered) on receipt of his fee, one month's equivalent rent, that he would check the villa and ensure that all bills left owed by the leaving tenants were paid, before he released any monies held by us to the leaving tenant. This he failed to do, giving the final amount, £600 to the leaving tenant, without waiting until all bills were paid. Resulting in a large Digiturk bill for over 200 TL arriving, as the former tenant had not paid a lira of it since October '12 until they left on 20th January this year! The Digiturk was left running in our name (mistake..) to convenience the tenant, as he said he wanted it left on, and would pay the monthly bill for Digiturk. This was also in the Tenancy Agreement which he signed. However, now the ex-tenant refuses to pay the final bill. It looks like it will be down to us as the owners, to settle it, awkward, as we are in the UK for some months yet.
We feel that the agent failed in his agreement/duty, to us, his clients, by not checking the bills were settled before refunding all monies back to the old tenants. He does not accept responsilbility...so my warning is not to get involved with him..a pleasant enough chap, but totally without conscience over this. He even suggested we ignore the bill, as he said "many other people do when they move back to the UK..."well, we are not all as lacking in scruples as this chap as I told him. And what happens to us when and if we decide to come back to Turkey, and want Digiturk re-instated? He still fails to take responsibility for his lack of action, and says that "whatever he does will not be enough"...!
Wrong, B, it would have been just fine had you done your job professionally! Makes us feel that all he was really interested in was getting his hands on the deposit from us and the new tenant, who he found to take the place - good riddance - of the departing tenants. My advice is to not trust this agent to look after your interests as he promises. We've had to email and email about this, and for him to do anything at all about it, such as try to get the ex-tenants to pay up, but they refuse.
He did not do, for us! Be warned! A link to the Turkish Living Forum, where the same topic is posted, with other comments, is at the end of this post.
Oh, by the way, B has been sending me snippets of a conversation between him and Scunner, on the Buy Sell or Rent Facebook site here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/219783928116987/ regarding this topic, where he uses a different surname to that he used with us! Since I pointed out to B that he was using another surname than the one he used with us, I have not heard back from him - strange! :-). Here is the link to this topic on the TLF Forum:-
http://www.turkishliving.com/forums/estate-agents-necessary-evil/65678-let-s-not-sell-properties-calis-2.htmlHappy reading! And be warned, be very warned..