Landlord TDS dispute

kj616

Hi,

I have a dispute with my landlord and would like some advice.

I have just moved out of my rented property and the Landlord wants to retain some £600 of my deposit. This is entirely unjustified and I feel I can prove so.

I have written to the LL and explained why his claims are unreasonable - he has refused to back down.

LL has failed to register our deposit with any of the 3 TDS schemes (I have written confirmation of this).

I have done a bit of research and my tenancy meets all the necessary requirements.

The tenancy has now ended and it seems I have no way of obtaining my deposit back without making a claim under ss 214 of the Housing Act.

I have read numerous cases on various message boards of people making such claims with varying degrees of success, however I am yet to find a case as clear cut as mine. i.e Tenancy has ended, LL is refusing to return deposit, deposit is not registered.

My questions are this:

- Should I write LL a pre-action letter, or does this give him the opportunity to register the deposit retrospectively? (I have heard that as the tenancy has ended he cannot do this - is this correct?)

- What do you anticipate to be the worst possible outcome for me (I will be claiming some £10k so cannot use the small claims route). Obviously I risk being liable to pay his costs if I loose, but I cannot see this happening - does anyone else think otherwise?

Thanks very much for your time.

Planner

kj616 wrote: »

Hi,

I have a dispute with my landlord and would like some advice.

I have just moved out of my rented property and the Landlord wants to retain some £600 of my deposit. This is entirely unjustified and I feel I can prove so.

I have written to the LL and explained why his claims are unreasonable - he has refused to back down.

LL has failed to register our deposit with any of the 3 TDS schemes (I have written confirmation of this).

I have done a bit of research and my tenancy meets all the necessary requirements (AST, started in Nov 2007, less than £25k rent etc).

The tenancy has now ended and it seems I have no way of obtaining my deposit back without making a claim under ss 214 of the Housing Act.

I have read numerous cases on various message boards of people making such claims with varying degrees of success, however I am yet to find a case as clear cut as mine. i.e Tenancy has ended, LL is refusing to return deposit, deposit is not registered.

My questions are this:

- Should I write LL a pre-action letter, or does this give him the opportunity to register the deposit retrospectively? (I have heard that as the tenancy has ended he cannot do this - is this correct?)

- What do you anticipate to be the worst possible outcome for me (I will be claiming some £10k so cannot use the small claims route). Obviously I risk being liable to pay his costs if I loose, but I cannot see this happening - does anyone else think otherwise?

Thanks very much for your time.

- You should write your landlord a pre-action letter. Your landlord has the oppurtunity to protected your deposit all the way up to the court date, so writing a pre-action letter will make no difference.

- Your mistaken, you wont be claiming £10K, you will be claiming your deposit, it is for the court to award the x3 penalty. You will be using a N208 Part 8 form to submit any claim, not a N1 form or Moneyclaim online. Only very very limited costs are awardable in Small Claims.

Premier_2

Ok, I'll bite again

In answer to your questions:

1. Yes
2. How have you come to the figure of a £10k claim? You said the dispute is over £600 the LL is not giving you back. Worst case is you'll lose, and end up having to pay the defendants expenses as well as the court fees you would have already paid.

tbs624

kj616 - there are two/three issues here

1.(a) the LL has failed to register your deposit as required by law, provided that the deposit was "received" but the LL after 6 April 07 - it's not necessarily the date on which the tenancy started. Have you checked for yourself that the deposit was definitely not registered? See here for contact info.
(b)You have not been given the prescribed info on the deposit scheme within the relevant time frame.

2. the LL cannot in any event simply make deductions from your deposit without justifying them in writing to you: you can then challenge them if you think you are justified in doing so, following it through to court under the small claims procedure.

As has been stated on these boards many times, the poor drafting of the relevant section of the Housing Act has meant that LLs are still getting away with the shoddy business practices to which the law was supposed to bring a halt.

There is absolutely no excuse for a LL not to register a tenant's deposit money and any tenant who find that their LL has failed to comply with the law should report the LL to the the private sector rentals team at the local council, to their MP and to the Housing Minister, with copy letters being sent to the CAB and Shelter. There has to be far greater publicity on how the law is still failing to adequately protect tenants.

The intention of the law should mean that your deposit is returned to you in full, plus the penalty of 3x the deposit amount. Unfortunately, the number of cases that have come to court so far do not indicate that success would be guaranteed.

Your first step would be as you say to write formally to the LL - have sent some info via PM and here are some links that may also be of help: see here, here and related posting here

As the law states that a LL may not serve a S21 notice whilst a tenancy deposit is unregistered, it would be good to see a couple of cases where if a tenant has moved out because of a S21 served on them by the LL challenged through the courts as a form of unlawful eviction or tenant harassment.

N79

tbs624 wrote: »

As the law states that a LL may not serve a S21 notice whilst a tenancy deposit is unregistered, it would be good to see a couple of cases where if a tenant has moved out because of a S21 served on them by the LL challenged through the courts as a form of unlawful eviction or tenant harassment.

1. I am not disagreeing with anything said in the rest of TBS's post - all reasonable advice.

2. How is a LL asking a T to move our harassmet or unlawful eviction? I do not believe that it would be good to expand the definition of harassment to include asking Ts to leave (if asked once and in a non threatening manner). Rather than asking for every more rediculous extensions to legislation which will be used by "professional Ts" to make life difficult for LLs (defending malicious accusations of harassment and unlawful eviction are expensive, time consuming and both are criminal) we should aim at sorting out what we currently have and make the deposit protection scheme actually work. I find it incredible that only the English and Welsh could be so incompetent as to fail in introducing such protection for Ts and effective enforcement against rogue LLs. The three times deposit and no S21 could be a very effective enforcement action - especially as the three times is absolute and can not be set off against Ts arreas so even Ts that trash a house and cause 10 times more damage can still walk away with their money. That is already a heavy enough sanction.

Sorry, I will now get of my soapbox!

stevetodd

kj616 wrote: »

- What do you anticipate to be the worst possible outcome for me (I will be claiming some £10k so cannot use the small claims route). Obviously I risk being liable to pay his costs if I loose, but I cannot see this happening - does anyone else think otherwise?

How does £600 become £10,000?

sooz

I guess the deposit was nearer £2500, of which the LL is trying to keep £600.
The OP wants his full original deposit back, plus 3x as a penalty.

kj616

sooz wrote: »

I guess the deposit was nearer £2500, of which the LL is trying to keep £600.
The OP wants his full original deposit back, plus 3x as a penalty.

This is exactly right, yes. The deposit was about £2,500 (don't have exact figure to hand). LL proposes to retian £600 of the deposit, but at present he hasn't retunred any of it.

Thanks for your comments everyone, and for the PM tbs.

tbd - I have written confirmation from all 3 of the approved TDS schemes that my deposit has not been registered.

So is everyone in agreement that my claim should only be for £2,500 (the value of the deposit) and not for the full £10k??

Thanks again.

kj616

Planner wrote: »

- You should write your landlord a pre-action letter. Your landlord has the oppurtunity to protected your deposit all the way up to the court date, so writing a pre-action letter will make no difference.

Is this the case even now that the tenancy has ended?

I spoke with the TDS that LL claimed the depiosit was registerd with yesterday and they suggested they would not register the deposit now the tenancy has ended.

My concern is that a pre-action letter will give LL the opportunity to return my depsoit, meaning I loose my claim for 3x the deposit. Could I request a figure close to the £10k in my pre action letter?

Planner

kj616 wrote: »

Planner wrote: »

- You should write your landlord a pre-action letter. Your landlord has the oppurtunity to protected your deposit all the way up to the court date, so writing a pre-action letter will make no difference.

Is this the case even now that the tenancy has ended?

I spoke with the TDS that LL claimed the depiosit was registerd with yesterday and they suggested they would not register the deposit now the tenancy has ended.

My concern is that a pre-action letter will give LL the opportunity to return my depsoit, meaning I loose my claim for 3x the deposit. Could I request a figure close to the £10k in my pre action letter?

Just a quick note on the links that tbs624 has posted, the first one (the NUS one) shouldnt be used as it is inaccurate, claim form N208 and not claim form N1 should be used.

In terms of the deposit being registered now, I dont believe DPS will but I have antedotal that the two insurance backed schemes will.

As previously stated, it appears that the LL can protect the deposit all the way up to the court date.

Your pre-action letter should ask for return of the depsoit and threaten the x3 tds non-compliance fine, if this isnt complied with.

stevetodd

sooz wrote: »

I guess the deposit was nearer £2500, of which the LL is trying to keep £600.
The OP wants his full original deposit back, plus 3x as a penalty.

Ahh I see thanks, there is no way that I would not protect a deposit so I am not really on top of the system as to what happens if you don't. Although I was aware there was some punitive system in place.