Our public dispute with Fox & Sons has continued into the new year, with the agency still failing to adequately compensate six former tenants who they left homeless five days after their tenancy was supposed to start. This failure has been made starker through the revelation that Fox & Sons demanded £720 compensation from the property company, Jears Properties Limited, that own the house the tenants were to move in to.
Why this money did not reach the tenants and was instead used to compensate the agency for its failure to perform its role adequately is unclear. Jears Properties Limited is a multi-million-pound company with properties across the UK in Brighton, Bristol and Blackpool. Fox & Sons are a major estate agency with hundreds of properties on their books. But neither company have so far proven able to pay £380 each to the group of tenants left with nowhere to live and forced to move into a more expensive property, with the £720 paid by Jears instead being used to line the pockets of Fox & Sons.
According to the Directors of Jears Properties Limited, Allen and Judith Shepherd, they understood the £720 they gave to Fox & Sons as compensation for the tenants unable to move into the property. But this never happened. Instead, both companies have ignored the tenants caught up in their failures and dealt exclusively with one another.
Our demand remains that Fox & Sons compensate each tenant £380 for leaving them with nowhere to stay, a sum that should help the tenants to cover the difference in rent they were forced to pay when finding a property at short notice after the cancellation of their planned tenancy. Perhaps Fox & Sons can put the ‘compensation’ paid by Jears Properties Limited towards this sum. Until they do so, our public campaign will continue.
An injury to one is an injury to all!
Having trouble with Fox & Sons? You can get in touch with us at:
Email: housing@brightonsolfed.org.uk
Text: 07427239960