My rental property has been managed for a couple of years by company A. I recently found out that management of my property had been sold to company B and that I wasn't informed earlier as it was hard to reach me overseas.
I immediately contacted A and found out that the rent roll with my property on it had been sold by the actual individuals performing the day to day management, rather than the company itself. I presume it was some kind of franchise arrangement that allowed this as opposed to an employee arrangement.
I am now back with A and happy with the new (old) arrangement but for 2 weeks B collected rent and believes that they are entitled to payment for their efforts. From my perspective what B has done, aside from cause undue stress and disruption to my tenants, is act as my agents under false pretenses and intercept rent money without my authority to do so. I have scoured the documents I signed with A to find a section that allows transfer of my authority and it just isn't there. I have also repeatedly asked B to provide the evidence that this is a legal activity but they cannot; they only have vague statements and a history of the same activity to lean on.
B has agreed to what they consider a full refund and what I consider the return of money that was never theirs to begin with so this is purely an academic question: If I have given a rental agency authority to act as landlords over my property, can they transfer that authority to another person or agency without my consent?