Collapsed estate agent liquidators pursue 83-year-old landlord for cancellation fee

Francis Conde, of Sutton Coldfield, said he terminated his contract with Walsall-based Homepoint Estate Agents Ltd last year over late payment of rent he was owed.

He said at one point he was owed a similar amount of money in unpaid rent, which he only recovered after getting a friend who worked in the industry to take up his case.

But Mr Conde said when he gave notice he wanted to end his contract with Homepoint, he was told he would have to pay three months' rent as a termination fee.

Last month the Express & Star revealed that Homepoint, which also used to have branches in Stourbridge, Wolverhampton and Birmingham, collapsed with debts of more £1.3 million.

It is feared that hundreds of tenants will lose money they have paid as deposits, because they were not paid into a secure scheme, and Dudley trading standards officers are now investigating the collapse of the company.

The company was run by Ajit Singh Pooni, of Ilmington Drive, Sutton Coldfield, but its clients have now been taken over by a new company called Point to Home, which is being run from the same office in Walsall by Mr Pooni's wife Charnjit Kaur Sidhu.

Mr Conde said: "I was owed three months' rent, but they wouldn't respond or reply to phone calls or text messages," he said.

"They started being late paying the rent, and it got to the point where you couldn't tell whether the rent was for this month or last month.

"I got my money back in the end, but it cost me a bit of money.

"I got a friend who used to be in the same business, and he went into their offices in Walsall and argued the case. After a lot of arguing, they gave the money to me."

But he said when he went into the offices to give notice he no longer wished to use the company's services, he was told that the small print in his contract said he would have to pay three months' rent to end the agreement.

"As far as I'm concerned, they had broken my contract by not giving me my rent," he said.

"I'm 83, and I could do without it. I was checking on the internet every day to see if the money was being paid."

Laura Pickering of Moore Insolvency, which is handling the liquidation of Homepoint, said she could not comment on the matter.