A letting agency has been under further scrutiny by the BBC amid claims that it has been illegally evicting tenants and taking their belongings.

On the Victoria Derbyshire Show last Friday tenants were said to have come home to find the locks changed and their rooms emptied.

Some tenants said their possessions had not been returned, and others that their belongings were left in bin bags on the street outside the agency.

One tenant, Julius Agyei, said he was planning to take legal action to make the agency return his belongings or pay compensation.

Flintons in east London strongly denied all the claims, and the BBC said it is not aware of any criminal investigation into Flintons related to allegations of illegal eviction.

One couple, Stan Cristinel and Georgiana Militaru, said they were behind with the rent when they came home to find their door wide open and their belongings gone.

The couple complained to Flintons and paid £450 to get their belongings back. Flintons said that the £450 had been for breaking their contract early.

The couple complained to The Property Ombudsman which, according to the BBC, ordered Flintons to pay the couple £400 in compensation.

The Victoria Derbyshire Show was investigating a sharp rise in complaints about illegal evictions by private tenants to Citizens Advice.

The charity said that 2,164 people had reported the problem in the last year, up from 1,415 in 2014/15.

It is not the first time that Flintons has been in the spotlight.

At the end of last year, the Victoria Derbyshire Programme claimed that Flintons was charging prospective tenants non-refundable viewing fees.

Flintons totally denied these allegations, giving EYE a lengthy retraction which also addressed other issues, including whether it was displaying logos of organisations to which it did not belong, and its possible links with another company, Citiside Properties.

At the weekend, Flintons – a trading name of Flat Sharing Ltd – was displaying logos of both TPO and the Deposit Protection Service.

According to Companies House, the director of Flat Sharing Ltd is Runa Begum, who was also a director of Citiside Properties which is now in liquidation.

EYE has also approached the firm to see if it wanted to say anything further about the latest claims aired on the BBC.

Agent denying BBC claims about charging tenants viewing fees is under renewed spotlight