Unknown Unknowns

About a month ago, our property agency was taken over by the estate agency who found us the apartment. A few days before our rent was due, the estate agent we originally dealt with contacted us to tell us about the new arrangements - basically, there weren't any, except that now we would pay the estate agency - let us call them company X, even though that's not their real name - instead of the property agency, company Y (our landlords).

Company Y, it seemed, was now either owned by or taken over by company X, and company X owned all their property. The agent herself (let's call her Jim, for no reason) would now be our contact for any problems with the apartment. And indeed she inquired as to any issues there might be, and suggested without prompting that the new company would try and install washing machines where possible. And various other details : the new company had an Italian owner, they regretted they wouldn't be able to do much about the graffiti on the outside of the building, etc.

For this one time, we should pay Jim in cash since the electronic banking facilities for the new company weren't set up yet. Everyone was still trying to get used to the new systems in place. The terms of the existing contracts would be honoured; essentially nothing would change except for who we paid the money to and contacted in the event of a problem.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but readers should understand a few things at this point. Firstly, this was the same agent who originally showed us the apartment, who arranged the contract with our property agency, who was present at the property agency office while we signed the contract and handed over the first month's rent and deposit. It was obvious that the two parties knew each other, at least to some degree, so the credentials seemed impeccable. Also, I spent the last two years paying my rent directly to my landlord, who was my next door neighbour - so I have zero previous experience with property and estate agencies.

So we parted with our cash and got a signed receipt (naturally) though no kind of new contract. I would have expected to have signed something regarding the new ownership and maybe a termination of the previous contract, even if the terms of the new one were identical except for the owner's names. I guess we expected something to be forthcoming. Jim left us her contact details (although we already had these). I really don't remember if she mentioned there would be anything else to sign or not.

Days went by. A week. Life went on. The only odd thing was that our neighbours hadn't heard anything about the new arrangements, and we were given to believe that the new agency owned the whole building. Weird. Perhaps we'd misunderstood something.

Two weeks passed. Any sort of doubt had now gone completely. If I don't pay rent for a few days, I would hope that the landlords wouldn't immediately shout at me, and might be courteous enough to give benefit of the doubt and not say anything at all. That would be perfectly legitimate in my view (on our contract, it says we should pay the rent no later than 5 days after the due date). After a week, I would expect to start hearing polite, "can you pay us some money, please ?" messages. After two weeks I would anticipate justifiably angry "Where is our money ?" demands.

Three weeks passed and still we heard nothing from anyone. I could not imagine that any company expecting to receive regular rent would wait a full three weeks and more before even saying anything to the tenants. Then one afternoon in work came a phone call.
"Hello, is this... William Taylor ?"
"Yes, this is Rhys Taylor, William is my middle name."
"Err... yes. You rent the apartment at... XXXX ?"
"Yes, that's me."
"We have not received any rent for March from you."
I then proceeded to describe the events to an utterly dumbfounded agent. More phone calls followed. The property agency was apparently completely and totally unaware of the new arrangement, quite convinced that they still owned the entire building (which is generally not something it's easy to be mistaken about). They seem surprised, naturally enough, that we would pay money into an account not stipulated in our contract* (I was surprised that they had taken over three weeks to ask for their rent, though I didn't tell them this).

* Silly though it sounds, this hadn't occurred to me. I guess I was imagining that if the ownership of the whole building had changed, and the PA had been taken over by another company, then this was a situation that couldn't be covered by the contract.

Of course I did tell them that it was Jim who told us all this and they tried to contact her. She wasn't responding to them, but when I phoned her a few minutes later she responded instantly. More phone calls followed. Almost surprisingly, the two parties did indeed establish direct contact - at this point I was half-expecting that Jim would simply lie and/or run away. Not so. Both seemed in agreement that Jim would bring the money she'd taken directly to the PA.

Since this happened just before 4pm, when the PA office closes, I waited until 10am the next morning to call and check what was going on. There hadn't been any progress, but half hour later they called me back. Everything had now been settled - Jim had delivered the money as promised. We should continue to pay our rent to the original property agency, as before, and if Jim contacted us again, we should ignore anything she said. Which seems entirely reasonable to me. Though it's hard to tell on the phone, they seemed as ignorant as to what the hell was going on as I was.

I haven't since tried to contact Jim again and I don't intend to. Having signed no property contract except with the original property agency, it seems pretty clear that they are still our landlords. What I can't understand is... well, anything else.

It's pretty much beyond the realms of possibility that our property agency could have been taken over by another company and their building swiped from under their noses without them knowing about it. That just doesn't make any sense at all. Yet, if Jim is trying to pull a fast one, she is both an accomplished liar and yet also curiously unintelligent. I mean, what kind of scam artist leaves a signed receipt, valid contact details and gives the money back when asked ?? And why on earth would anyone fake being a landlord ?

Moreover, a month's rent here isn't a huge sum of money. You could buy a very nice sofa with it, or perhaps a week's holiday somewhere not too expensive. Did Jim just need a short-term loan or something ? And what did she think would happen when the property agency noticed we hadn't paid our rent ?

I suspect this weird little debaclé isn't over. But I've got a contract telling me who my landlord is, and it isn't Jim, and no documents of any kind telling me I should do anything Jim says. Any further dealings will be handled face-to-face at the property office, so there won't be any doubt as to who owns the building and who's gone stark raving mad. Apparently it's quite easy to get those confused.

EDIT : The managing director of the company emailed me a notification that Jim is no longer working at said company and acted without authorization. I'm a little disappointed that I'll probably never understand what the heck Jim was trying to do, but the matter is apparently now closed.