Mystery surrounds fate of 'closed' letting agency

Mystery surrounds the fate of Kirby Property Management, a letting agency with offices at Cambourne, Cambridge and St Neots in the east of England. 

Local press reports quote landlords and tenants being up in arms and Cambridgeshire county council advising landlords and tenants to contact the police, Citizens’ Advice or NALS as appropriate.

Letting Agent Today has tried to contact the agency by telephone and email but without success. 

Its website is still live but a Google search by LAT for the firm produces an entry with the warning “this site may be hacked” while telephone calls are terminated with an automatic voice claiming “attendants” are not available to answer.

The Cambridge News local press website claims that one landlord, who did not want to be named, said he and his wife had read about the firm on Facebook: "We immediately checked our bank account and realised that our rent, which was due to us on July 18, had not been processed. This means we have had to find money to ensure our mortgage is paid. This morning we went to the Kirby office. There was nobody around and it was locked up."

An agent in the area contacted LAT to say there had been speculation that another agency had been in talks to buy Kirby, but that these discussions had fallen through. 

Meanwhile another landlord told the News he had gone to the Cambourne office on Monday and several other landlords were already there trying to find out what was happening.

"I have been to see my tenants to tell them to stop direct debits and to make other arrangements to pay the rent and other people were doing the same," the landlord, who has eight properties, told the paper.

A woman who was outside the Cambourne branch office is quoted as saying: "My daughter is a tenant and is away and we need to find out what to do."

The community Facebook page (here) has become a discussion forom about the fate of the company.