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Rental Contract
Hi,
My situation is this, I went to an immo agency and filled/signed-up the "Offre et Promesse De Location". I gave all the requirements and the 50% monthly rent, as required by the agent. I was hesitant at first, but the agent assured me that she will refund this amount if ever the landlord doesn't chose me or I backed-out and not sign the contract. A few days later, a copy of contract was emailed to me and I found it not suited, so I told her it's difficult for me to meet these requirements and I'm not interested. The problem starts here, the agency manager called me and told that I cannot get the 50% monthly rent I gave since I withdrew,, and forget what her agent told me about refunding it. Sad thing is, I called several times the agent whom I dealt with but she's not answering her mobile phone. I know I made a mistake trusting her but what are my chances of getting my money back? Any advice would be very very much appreciated.
An OFFER is binding if
1) it is accepted by the lessor
and
2) any CONDITIONS imposed within it by the would-be lessee are met.
It has clearly been accepted and it would seem that the agent believes that any conditions you imposed have been met too. What conditions did you impose?
Thieving gits.
This is illegal. You cannot be charged for finding you an apartment.
Best bet would be to turn up at the office and demand your money back in cash there and then. Point out that in law, it is the landlord who pays the agency, not the agent, and that a Belgian Lawyer has told you that the agency cannot legally take money from a prospective tenant. (don't worry about lying about the lawyer at this point - they know the law
Do you have a large, silent male friend who looks like a bouncer? Your friend could go with you for "moral" support and to drive the agent to the cashpoint when they claim that they don't have enough cash.
The slow way is to go through the Juge de Paix and recover your money through the courts.
You should also report them to http://www.ipi.be/
This is the body which regulates all estate agents, and it is illegal for anyone to offer estate agency services unless they are approved by the IPI. They should also be able to advise.
So you signed an "Offre et Promesse de Location", or "Offer and Commitment to Rent" in the English language, and paid half a month's rent as a deposit (to represent your good faith - not as a dwelling finder's fee to the agency), without imposing any conditions. That document, once accepted by the lessor, as it subsequently was, bound you to sign the lease contract, at the very least on standard terms, and yet when you were asked to sign the contract you backed out.
And you seem surprised that the agency won't refund the deposit that you committed yourself to paying. This is Belgium, signing a document here commits you to doing what that document says you will do. In this case, it was to take a lease on the dwelling in question. The fine details of the lease would be settled in the contract but the signed offer, once accepted by the lessor, bound you to sign a contract. Your only hope would be if the terms proposed in the contract were unreasonable (for example, were for a 3 year FIXED as opposed to variable term or were for a higher rent than you had agreed to pay), the fact that the Agency thinks that it is on firm ground suggests that this line of argument won't get you very much further than costing you even more money. You signed, you pay.
"copy of contract was emailed to me and I found it not suited"
What was there in the contract that you did not find acceptable? For example the duration of the contract should have been agreed already at the stage where you signed the "Offre et Promesse De Location".
I assume the document you signed was pretty much like this one (which is an example of a "Promesse de location" document used by another Belgian agengy: http://www.greenkey.be/Documents/docs_greenkey/Promesse_de_location.pdf
The document states "Le locataire verse à titre d'acompte ...€ . En cas de
désistement du propriétaire du bien susmentionné, l’acompte sera restitué au candidat locataire endéans les 3 jours ouvrables".
I.e. if the owner decides not to rent to, you get the down payment back. However, it does not state anywhere that if you then decide not to rent the apartment/house, you get the down paymen back. In fact, it even clearly states "Le locataire s'engage à signer le contrat de bail au plus tard le.." i.e if you have signed the document you are contractually obliged to actually rent the place in question.
It the agent who dealt with you really did tell you that you will get the money back even if you decide not to go ahead with the rental contract, she was lying. On the other hand, it's also possible that you have misunderstood what she said. In any case, it's her word against yours, and what counts is that you have signed the document in question, marking your signature with "lu et approuvé" meaning that you expressly state that you have read the text and approve it.
As Becasse pointed out, you have not been charged for finding you an apartment (which, as J said, would be illegal) but you have been charged a downpayment for rent that you would subsequently pay when the rental contract enters into force.
This is just a layman's opinion, but I would say that this fact alone won't make a difference (especially if the words are printed below your signature as in the example I gave).
An important question remains though. The monthly rent, the monthly charges and the duration of the contract have, if I understand correctly, been mentioned in the "promesse de location" document so you knew what those would be. You have visited the apartment and have liked it so much you decided you would like to live there.
So what are the requirements in the actual contract that you feel you cannot meet? I'm just wondering if they are in fact something that is standard in all Belgian rental contracts (but which you did not know about).
