Can a Landlord back track?

[carang]

haven't read all of the responses, but as the first responder said, the landlord can do whatever he likes until you've signed the actual lease.

last year, we had not only agreed on the rental and conditions of a place, but i had signed the prelim, handed over 1.5 month's worth of deposit and my financials, only to get a call the next day from the agent apologising... he said that after seeing my financials, they decided they wanted +12.5%/month than agreed. we just couldn't manage that, so got our money back.

incidentally, we drove past the place about 6 weeks ago... it's still empty! the idiot lost out of our paying a year's rent because he got greedy and wanted another $5k/month!

[Joseph098765]

HK Property market is very volatile now. This normally happens in case of government transition time because of many uncertainties. You will see Property Price / Rental price going both the ways sharply for next few weeks until new policies become clear.

[pandancake]

What budget and location are you looking at?

40 to 50k. Have looked in both sides of the mid-levels, causeway bay, happy valley and now heading to ap lei Chau .

[pandancake]

That's exactly what's happening to us now . We sent the agent an email yesterday stating all our requirements yet again with an addition to let us know if the landlady is no longer interested so that we can look elsewhere. As someone suggested we also asked for her direct contact so we could speak with her. Late evening we get a call from the agent that the landlady has signed the provisional agreement, has got the apartment cleaned and is in the process of getting all our other improvements done.

[drumbrake]

40 to 50k. Have looked in both sides of the mid-levels, causeway bay, happy valley and now heading to ap lei Chau .

If the place you are looking at doesn't work out, I'd change the agent. With the new agent make it very clear what your requirements are.

[hullexile]

Happens in the UK too, just rented a place and the agent said there was lots of interest blah blah blah. Somehow though the landlord chose us even though we are not in the country, have no character references etc.

[pandancake]

Maybe we should start a new thread to catalog everyone's experiences with real estate agents in Hong Kong . Should make an interesting read.

[pandancake]

Dumbrake that's exactly what I plan to do and have started the process.

[SiuMaiTaiTai]

once went to view an apartment at night and electricity was off. agent was desperate for us to sign there and then despite not having seen the apartment with the lights on. same pressures - other people interested, rents going up, etc

we walked away. next day went to a different agent, viewed the same apartment in daylight, signed contract a few days later. original rent.

Did you not have to pay both agents the commission as whenever we've looked at flats, we always had to sign something with the agent saying that any flats he or she showed us, we would have to pay commission for if we ended up renting it, even if we ended up renting it through another agency. Is this not normal ?