Spill the beans... on getting deposits back from landlords

Before I became a homeowner 6 months ago, I had rented a string of flats over several years and have had mixed success getting back a deposit. As previous posters have pointed out, there is no compulsary scheme in Scotland yet. All of the problems have been caused by unscrupulous letting agents, rather than Landlords themselves. I'm sure letting agents try to rip off landlords just as much as tenants.

I received 100% of the deposit back on my last place, but that was largely due to the fact that the landlord had abandoned the property, failed to pay factoring fees and failed to fix a serious problem with the roof and has since been repossessed.

The biggest problem I had was in a fairly new development that had not been well maintained. When moving in, we noted on the inventory scuff marks on the walls, a broken lampshade, marks on doors etc. During the course of the tenancy, a major damp problem had developed and there was a serious mould problem. We reported to the letting agent repeatedly, yet nothing was ever done. We also repeated problems with anti-social behaviour within the development, again to no avail.

During the tenancy, the letting agent tried every trick to nickle-and-dime us, including charging a non-refundable £200 holding fee on top of the deposit, plus trying to charge us £49 "lease renewal fees" every 6 months, despite us going in to their offices to sign new leases...so they weren't even down the cost of a stamp.

18 months in to the tenancy, my car was broken in to and vandalised within the secure underground car park. No longer feeling safe, we looked to move out. At first, they were not going to allow us to leave for another 5 months due to the wording on their lease. After much debate with the agents, we were allowed to leave with 40 days notice.

When carrying out the exit inspection, the letting agent commented on the mould growth (I pointed out it had been repeatedly reported) and scuff marks on doors and walls (again with me protesting it had already been remarked on our entry inventory) to which the reply was "yes, but I don't remember it being that bad". I told him I didn't think it was correct for him to withhold a deposit on something that was noted on the inventory, just because his memory from 2 years prior when handing over the property didn't match what he saw.

In the end, they deducted £234.20 from the deposit. I demanded to know what for, they stated it was for repainting. When I challenged this, and demanded to see their receipts, they produced (after much protest) a sheet from an invoice book (the type you get from WHSmith) with an address of a supposed painter-and-decorator based in the lane beside their office. Going to inspect the location, the address on the invoice turned out to be the cellar entrance of a local pub!

Oh, coincidentally, £234.20 is exactly one months council tax for that property...the same amount of time the property was without tenants!

My advice to landlords and tenants alike....check your letting agencies are professional and work in your interests, not theirs. Photograph EVERYTHING, and get the landlord/tenant/agent to sign upon entry any photographs of damage or wear and tear.

I technically didn't get my deposit back when I left the rented room.
I'd been off work on the sick and only getting SSP. Had basically moved all my stuff back to mums house. Gave more than the required 1 months notice. Didn't actually pay the last months rent. Told them they'd be giving it back to me within a few weeks, but I couldn't afford it anyway with being off work

I am a Landlord. The current process is geared up in favour of the tenants. By law if you take a deposit from your tenant on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement in England and Wales, you must protect that deposit with a government-authorised tenancy deposit protection scheme, within 30 days of receiving it. Failure to do so can mean that you are instructed to pay your tenant compensation equal to three times the amount of the deposit within 14 days of a Court Order. Also, you will be unable to obtain a Court Order to regain possession of the property (under Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988) unless and until the deposit is protected.
There are a number of official deposit sites .. one such site is :
http://www.mydeposits.co.uk/

ericthelobster wrote: »

A sure-fire way of ensuring you won't get a good reference from your landlord, at the very least.

I'm a landlord and I wouldn't give a bad reference to a tenant, even if they withheld the rent. Why? Well, if they can't find somewhere else to live because I gave them a bad reference, they are likely to remain my tenant/problem!

Instead, I use Townends as my agent and their standard tenancy contract specifically states any monies owed to the landlord, including outstanding rent, can be deducted from the deposit.

So, when a tenancy expires with rent owed, I refuse to release any of the deposit until the outstanding rent has been deducted. By that stage the tenant will have moved out of my property so there's no issue with them remaining my problem.

If the tenant refuses to permit deduction of the rent, I would let them take me to the Small Claims Court for recovery of their deposit and then I would counterclaim for the owed rent. Luckily this hasn't ever happened, to date.

One final thing to note from all this.........many landlords give bad tenants good references just to get shot of them - it's a dog it dog world out there.

So, if a landlord really wants to be sure of a prospective tenants suitability they shouldn't just get a reference from a tenant's previous landlord, but the one before that as well - in theory. I imagine the practicalities of that, however, would not be easy.

We moved into a house once that was in a filthy state. We needed in at short notice, so said we didn't mind moving in if the flat would be cleaned a couple of days after. Like silly souls, because we knew a cleaner was due in 2 days, we didn't take photos of the dirt (this is the number 1 rule to be able to claim your deposit back!). The cleaner came, but she was only paid to clean the kitchen (which took her 5 hours), and so we scrubbed all of the rest of the flat.

When we moved out, we left the flat clean and habitable, much better than when we moved in. A few days later the new tenant sent them photos of dirty carpets, stains on the white couch, marks on the doors and walls, and dirty utensils that we had confined to a cupboard (and only kept because they were on the inventory). The landlord wanted to charge us for this, even though it was stuff the previous tenants had done. We had no photos to prove this (See???) but I refused to pay for any of it.

I decided to turn my own rule against them. I asked them to provide me with photos of the flat before we moved in, proving it had been in a clean state. I pointed out that they had a record of the flat being in a filthy state (as they had brought a cleaner in, though funnily enough they had lost their records), I asked them for photos of the damage, along with a detailed list of everything they were charging us for, and how much, so that I could pass all this information on to my solicitor. I also refused to give them a forwarding a address to refund the deposit to until they had provided all of this information. Funnily enough, after a few weeks of following this line of action, and insisting that I needed all of the above so that I could pass it to my solicitor to deal with, they 'found' their records, and gave us a full refund.

Please bear in mind, this only worked because we were in the right - you can't leave a house in a tip and still maintain the high ground, as they do have condition surveys done before you move in. If my solicitor had written to ask for this survey, it would have proved we were right, and that's the only reason this worked.