Tenants and landlords who use a Stafford-based letting agency fear they could lose thousands of pounds in rent and deposits.
Several customers of Bridge Street based GDH Property Management Services have contacted the Newsletter in the past week with their concerns about service and money owed over the past few months.
This week GDH’s new owner, founder David Hartley, told the Newsletter that GDH was not in administration but Jupita Ltd, the company which owned GDH, was.
One landlord said they were owed four months’ rent - more than £2,000 in total - on a Stafford house.
Another landlord said they had moved their properties to another letting agent in April, but were still owed more than £350 in rent on one property.
A former tenant, who knows people still living in a property managed by GDH, said they were worried they could lose their deposit. “Hundreds of people don’t know what is going on with hundreds of pounds of their money.” A spokesman for The Dispute Service which runs the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) said tenants whose deposits had been registered with TDS had received letters explaining that their deposit would be protected up to a specified deadline, determined on a case-by-case basis.
A letter received by one tenant explained that The Dispute Service had determined the scheme membership of Jupita Ltd, trading as GDH Property Management Services, should be terminated with effect from June 4, 2010.
Mr Hartley, who is based in North Wales and took over GDH last week, said he could not comment on what had happened at GDH in the past 10 years.
“Jupita Ltd, the company that was trading on the premises of GDH, has gone into liquidation,” he said.
“I set up GDH in 1987, in partnership with my father. I sold it to Jupita Ltd 10 years ago but now I have recovered it from the ashes. I am hoping to restore the business. When I previously owned it, it was doing fine.”
