Tenancy Deposit Schemes - BEWARE of Countrywide

Letting agents & landlords just charge what ever they can get away with. They rip tennants off whenever possible.

Its just in their nature.

I found ARLA pretty useless - they were uninterested in our deposit dispute and passed us on to the Dispute service. I guess ARLA have no interest in there being complains against their member companies, seeing as they make their money from those very members via annual fees for membership.

The Dispute Service took 5 whole months to come back to us about our dispute and that was only after we chased them. To be fair to them they found in our favour, but that was about as useful as a wok on a desert island because it got us nowehere apart from assuring us we should continue with our court case against an evasive and unfair landlord.

After a year of chasing a landlord who retained our entire £625 deposit for mostly 'cleaning' and 'dust', who then avoided us and basically hid behind the agents, we were overjoyed to finally get her into court last month and get her to bring her chequebook out. Yes it was a year of our life, but she actually ended up paying over £800 to ignore us, which to us was a victory. Plus the letting agents were burned somewhat with the number of calls/faxes/e-mails that their bas service rewarded them with. They did not allow us to be present at check-out, but I'd always recommend you ask *in writing* so that then you have proof you requested it. Attend if at all possible and ensure you have photos of the property at check-in and at check-out.

For tenants, be aware that the odds will be stacked against you - the landlord / letting agent can *say* there was dirt, dust etc etc and there ain't much you can do about it even if you photograph every inch of the property when you move in and when you leave. Some landlords will be extreme, others charge £50 for barely nothing, others charge for due costs - you won't know until you leave a property.

Not all landlords are bad, don't tar them all with the same brush, be careful, be honest, be neutral, swift, put things in writing and show intent if you are planning to take them to court.

In our case she basically got away with both recarpeting and repaining her flat with our deposit money, even though the carpet was stained and ancient when we moved in, and even though all we *did* to the wall was hang 3 pictures. The judge did not seem to think it important that the landlady had no proof of even buying the carpet, nor show proof that we did an ounce of 'damage' to the paintwork (she took photos, only 1 was a wall scrape, present in the flat when we moved in). She had even claimed paintwork was needed on the ceiling to cover damage, that gives you an idea of what she was like.

So now we are in a new flat, with a decent landlady who is a part of the new deposit protection, we feel much safer and I doubt that the Countrywide/Arla/Dispute connection will have much real bearing on whether generally folks get their deposit back or not, although of course it's a dodgy connection...

Thanks - have sent them an e-mail!

I think the outgoing and incoming tenants should decide any costs for 'puttimg things right' with the outgoing tenant paying the incoming tenant. The LL/LA could keep out of the situation with the incoming tenant taking responsibility for the condition of the property.



GG

I wouldn't be surprised if most tenants got a similar charge.

Probably easier to take a little off everybody than a lot off the few people who really did leave it in a mess.

And it probably "pays for the bubbly at the shareholders meeting"!