My girlfriend was approached by a man employed by her landlord to manage the property - Bob - last year with a deal where she would pay 6 months rent up front and each month she would get the months back as well as a bit extra as a discount, she would continue to pay her standing order as normal - the effect of this would be a 20% discount each month fo0r the next 6 months. The money was required for renovations to another property owned by the landlord.

My gf accepted the deal and everything went to plan for the first 2 months. She has not received this months rent + discount back and Bob has been sacked for unknown reasons.

The landlord says has no knowledge of this deal with Bob.

Bob is not replying to my gf's voice mails and he is now late paying the 3rd months rent back.

Bob currently holds £3.5k of my gf's money. She is not in financial hardship as a result of this. What should we do? We literally found out about this a couple of hours ago.

update - The landlord has just said that she doesnt need to pay any rent at all for Feb, mar and April. This will now put her out of pocket for only 1 months rent instead of 4.