Letting agents: a horror story

John Sturgis|Anthony France @NewsFrenchTony|Mira Bar-Hille|Keith Poole

5 April 2012

Michael Heath looks like an affluent property professional: he wears an expensive suit and tie and a chunky silver watch, and sports a radiant winter tan. There is nothing about him to suggest he has any financial problems. Yet we have learned that several of his clients claim the company he works for owes them thousands of pounds.

Heath is a lettings manager for Chandler Property Consultants. A growing number of disillusioned homeowners in Docklands rue the day they heard the name.

That's because it is owned by a "phoenix" company, risen from the ashes of a previous business that went bust owing huge sums, and is involved in an ongoing deception that is almost too obvious to be true. The letting agent signs up a property owner, finds a tenant and arranges for rent collection - at which point, instead of passing the money on, the agent keeps hold of hundreds or thousands of pounds. When challenged, the agent stalls for months until finally going out of business, leaving the home owner searching for a lawyer. At this point the lettings agency reopens under another name.

We have spoken to several victims of Chandler Property Consultants, and a related business, Taylor Simpson.

Oil engineer Ken Leask rented his Docklands flat through the firm when he moved to Singapore. He says he is now owed more than £3,500 and hasn't received a penny since tenants moved in to his home in November.

"This company is unbelievable," he said. "My tenants have been totally reliable, paying everything on time, but no money has reached me. Chandler just tells barefaced lies. I have been phoning them almost every day for months, but they just pass you round from one person to another, making one excuse after another. It's daylight robbery in every sense - except apparently the law can't do anything about it."

Retired policeman David Bell had a similar experience with Chandler, which he says has cost him around £8,000, since he moved to Thailand in April last year.

Mr Bell has asked his brother Jim, who lives in Norfolk, to help him try to recover the money. He said: "It's insane that they are able to get away with this. If I lived in London, I'd stand outside them with a sandwich board saying they are crooks. Every day some new sucker is signing away the biggest investment of their life to these scoundrels."

Human resources manager Sindy Shields, now living in Wiltshire, rented out her Beckton home through Taylor Simpson in East Ham. Although the couple who took her house paid their rent promptly, the money never reached her. By the time the company that owned the business, Taylor Simpson Ltd, went into liquidation in December 2000, she was some £3,500 out of pocket. She has written the money off. So she was astonished to find that there is still a Taylor Simpson letting agent trading in East Ham.

"It's bad enough to lose the money but to know there is still a company there under different ownership, and probably still ripping people off, makes me really angry," she said.

James Limpkin, a 27-year-old IT specialist, rented out his two-bedroom flat in Barking through Taylor Simpson a year ago when work took him to Australia. He claims the firm has pocketed £6,500 of his money

He says they also duped him into agreeing to give his tenants a two-year lease which let the agents take their 15 per cent fee for the whole contract up front, meaning he wasn't even eligible to receive rent for three months.

Mr Limpkin's father Alan, 56, is pursuing the debt through the courts, but is resigned to losing the money. He said: "When you phone them up they all pretend not to know each other. I'm convinced their plan is to shut the company down when they've made enough money. I'm incredulous that they can't be stopped. Trading Standards know all about them but can't do anything."

Michael Heath is still in business. An Evening Standard reporter posing as a potential landlord met him. He was only too eager to take our business, writing out the income we could expect and explaining how modest his percentage would be. He was every inch the plausible businessman.

The name Chandler comes from the family name of Philip Chandler, 32, and his mother Stephanie, 59. Between them the Chandlers and a third figure, Navid Beheshti, 39, have been associated with two companies that have lost more than £1.5 million between them, leaving homeowners facing thousands of pounds of losses and the fear of mortgage arrears and repossessions.

Beheshti has links with other incarnations of the companies which have received complaints of missing rent, (though the Chandlers are no longer associated with either business).

All three are well-to-do: Mrs Chandler lives in a £350,000 home in rural Hertfordshire. Philip lives in a smart £300,000 apartment on a gated private estate in Buckhurst Hill, Essex; Navid Beheshti in a £700,000 family home in Woodford Green, Essex.

We have traced the chequered history of the companies they have run. The first lettings agency bearing the Chandler name was formed in Wapping in 1996, owned by a limited company, Philip Chandler and Co, and traded as Chandler Property Services. Philip was director, Stephanie company secretary. It owed just under £1million when it went bust almost three years ago.

At this point, the name Chandler Property Services was bought by an estate agency called Taylor Simpson Ltd which operated from an office in East Ham, and renamed Chandler Property Consultants.

Then, in December 2000, Taylor Simpson Ltd also went into liquidation, owing £522,500, and Chandler Property Consultants was acquired by a company called Island UK Ltd. Taylor Simpson is now owned by a firm called Semprini Ltd and trading from the same East Ham offices as the earlier "Ltd" version of Taylor Simpson.

The links between these companies are intricate. Both liquidated firms used accountants Paul Da Costa from Loughton as their contact address. So do Semprini Ltd and Island UK Ltd. Both the Chandlers were, at one time, officers of Semprini Ltd. As was Beheshti, who was also a director of Taylor Simpson Ltd when it went bust. And a director of Island UK.

Confused? Well, it seems you are meant to be. Johnathan Chippeck is the founder of Landlord Action, which specialises in helping people who fall foul of bad agents. He explained: "Someone is deliberately creating a complex web of company names, using phoney takeovers and voluntary liquidations, to take money from innocent people while ensuring there is never anyone to sue."

Trading Standards, in Tower Hamlets and Newham, are aware of the cases we have highlighted, and others like them. Inspector Jeremy Marsh said: "It is frustrating. A limited company can go bust and the directors can set up under another name. We can give advice to the victims and notify the police or the Department of Trade and Industry, but we can't stop them trading soon enough to save more people being ripped off."

Stephanie Chandler declined to comment and we were unable to contact Philip Chandler to request an interview although he was clearly made aware of our inquiries. Navid Beheshti said his solicitors would contact us but we have not heard from them. Michael Heath declined to comment and no one else at Chandler Property Consultants or Taylor Simpson would talk to us.

Stewart Collins, an accountant at Paul Da Costa, said: "The people you mention are our clients and we have a business relationship with them but I cannot comment on their affairs."

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