Landlord excessive charges

mstopham

I have just moved out of a property and had £280 removed from my deposit by the landlord.
I am fuming as this is way excessive in my opinion and want to gauge if others think so or not. (If everyone else thinks it is fair then I will leave be but if not I want to fight it)
£130 for rubbish removal. - This is about one medium van load worth. My fault it was still there at kicking out time (I ran out of time in my trips to the tip) but I offered to remove the next day or pay reasonable costs. Heard nothing then got whacked with this. I will consider it as a career if thats what it should pay!
£120 for "garden maintenance" The lawn (about 7m by 4m) needed mowing. Nothing else as I had been pruning all the bushes and plants etc.
£30 for cleaning oven. This was cleaned and not used again before I left (and by a friend who is a cleaner for her living)
£20 for a broken outside light fitting. This cost I do not consider excessive but I had told them about it several weeks earlier when it happened and was told not to worry and they would sort it. No mention of cost then (It was vandalised, not broken by me)

Given the light, rubbish removal (which I was still willing to do) and mowing the lawn I would have thought in the region of £50 - £100 would be reasonable and would of accepted anything in that vein.

£280 is extortion in my opinion. I only paid £50 3 years ago when a tenant left the flat that I owned with the ex in a right state. They went in and cleaned the place up including the oven and removing rubbish for that.

So does this sound like a lot to pay? If so what should my next course of action be?

princeofpounds

Rubbish removal sound fair. 1 hour lifting, one hour taking to tip, one hour picking up and returning 'medium' van, half an hour organising rental and other admin- 35 quid. Plus 5 quid fuel and 90 van hire. It would certainly cost about that to outsource the job here in London.

Light fitting- if you reported and not your doing, not justified.

Oven- if cleaned, not fair. If not clean, not too cheap but still in reasonable range.

Garden- probably excessive, obviously condition of gardens more subjective than most things.

Step 1- ask for receipts and evidence of other quotes. State you are not responsible for light (any evidence?).

Step 2- dispute charges you feel unfair

Step 3- take case to TDS with all communication and inventories. Argue your case.

RoxyUK

I'm a property manager and they seem pretty reasonable to me, sorry!

1) The cost to hire a van would be in that region, plus you have an hourly charge of a workman to clear the property and dump the stuff, i'm guessing if you still had that much stuff left in the property it also wasn't properly cleaned so it would need to be cleaned after that.

2) Garden - that does seem a little high but if you had neglected to take care of it and again they needed to send someone in to cut the grass, trim the hedges clear it etc, I would expect a charge of around £100.

3) Oven - £30 sounds right, even if you had cleaned it, if it wasn't up to the landlords standards they can ask you to clean it again or charge for a professional clean.

4) Light fitting - this does seem a little harsh if you had already reported it, I would ask them about this but if they don't have any record of you reporting it on file they can charge you for it.

Hope this helps!

PasturesNew

A commercial van, taking stuff to the tip is charged a commercial rate, whereas you and I would be able to do it free.

The LL will have probably used a business to turn up with a van, take time to load the stuff, down to the tip, pay the charges, offload the stuff, brush out the back of the van, get back to their starting point... so while it looks a lot, you'd need to think about how much the charge costs in that area and what the commercial tipping charges are.

clutton_2

i think they are all reasonable costs - i am a landlord. if the LL hired a skip - thats £80 minimum these days

light fitting - not your problem - but did you report it in writing

orangeslimes

RoxyUK wrote: »

I'm a property manager and they seem pretty reasonable to me, sorry!

3) Oven - £30 sounds right, even if you had cleaned it, if it wasn't up to the landlords standards they can ask you to clean it again or charge for a professional clean.

Hope this helps!

No that sounds excessive to me. Especially the oven - seems fair enough to me as long as it is clean - even if not to professional standards. You are allowed a bit of wear and tear. (but then is hard for random people on internet to say not having seen it)
Asking for invoices/receipts to show exactly what was done is probably the first thing to do.

tbs624

mstopham wrote: »

I have just moved out of a property and had £280 removed from my deposit by the landlord.

How long have you been in this property? Is your tenancy deposit scheme-registered as it should have been if paid to your LL after 6 Apr 2007? Was an inventory completed at the start of the tenancy?

You have to leave a property in the same condition as let to you, save for "fair wear & tear" - however FW&T does not include dirt, damage or unkempt gardens.

mstopham wrote: »

£130 for rubbish removal. - This is about one medium van load worth. My fault it was still there at kicking out time (I ran out of time in my trips to the tip) but I offered to remove the next day or pay reasonable costs. Heard nothing then got whacked with this.

Heard nothing suggests that you did nothing - it was your rubbish, so you should have followed this up. If the LL had a new T coming in why should he wait for you to decide what you will do?

mstopham wrote: »

£120 for "garden maintenance" The lawn (about 7m by 4m) needed mowing. Nothing else as I had been pruning all the bushes and plants etc.

That's around a day's work - you have to leave the garden in a similar condition to how it was at the start of your tenancy.

mstopham wrote: »

£30 for cleaning oven. This was cleaned and not used again before I left (and by a friend who is a cleaner for her living)

It's a fair charge for oven cleaning but if there is no inventory you may be able to challenge this one.

mstopham wrote: »

£20 for a broken outside light fitting. This cost I do not consider excessive but I had told them about it several weeks earlier when it happened and was told not to worry and they would sort it. No mention of cost then (It was vandalised, not broken by me)

Challenge this one - you reported it , you say you didn't cause the damage so it's for the LL to sort out with his insurance company if necessary.

Has the LL confirmed these deductions in writing to you? If he has, you write back and say what you accept and what you disagree with. If the deposit is registered with a scheme you let the scheme administrators know that you are in dispute and take it from there.

clutton_2

fair wear and tear does not mean leaving a property dirty - including the oven. i pay £65 for a professional clean for an oven

ovens are usually the biggest bones of contention on checkout

mstopham

I moved in on 14th April 2007 but the deposit was taken before this. I have my contract in my paperwork I will dig it out and root through.

I should point out that the house was in no way dirty, unkempt or not looked after other than the lawn. The only reason I hadn't mown the lawn at the end of last summer was I had cartlidge trouble resulting in an operation and was mobile only by using crutches for nearly 6 months.
I had pruned etc so the only thing left to do in the garden was mow. I would consider £120 for mowing a lawn fairly excessive. When I was mowing it last summer it took me about 45 minutes if that. Wished I had mown it now, thought my time was better used doing other things like trips to the tip.

I think I will just ask for the receipt on the rubbish removal (We are talking things like pots and pans, a vacuum cleaner, a rug and dvds all things in another life that were usable, the charity shop van that came ran out of room as well.) I am coming around to perhaps that is not too excessive if they hired a van or similar to sort it out.

I don't have reporting the light fitting in writing. It happened at the same time as I was giving notice to move out so I verbally told them at the same time.

The oven is just irritating because I did pay someone to clean it knowing I probably wouldn't get it to the standard required. But the standard required is sujective and I will bite the bullet on this one as well I think.

I am going to ask for receipts and challange the garden maintenance and light fitting.

Thanks for the input!

llh189

I have lived in rented places for 15 years and have never had a penny of my deposit kept.

I have never left a property like you describe, my pride wouldn't let me,
I have always normally always been the one giving notice and therefore I have always been in charge of my moving out date I have managed this time effectively ensuring that cleaning and trips to the dump can be fitted in.

Knowing that you left the place in that state and that they had quite a lot of money of yours by way of your deposit what did you think would happen.

All costs seem reasonable, accept that you where at fault and get used to the fact that it was a costly error of judgement

tbs624

mstopham wrote: »

I moved in on 14th April 2007 but the deposit was taken before this. I have my contract in my paperwork I will dig it out and root through.

As I mentioned in the previous post, if your deposit was paid on or after *6*April 07 then the LL should have scheme-registered it and given you specific info on the scheme. It could be worth your while checking the date on which you paid your deposit across - if a LL fails to register a deposit they are obliged to either refundthe deposit in full to the T or scheme-register it immediately, and can also be slapped with a 3x the deposit amount penalty, payable to the T. (I don't condone Ts leaving properties in an unsuitable state at contract expiry but neither would I condone the behaviour of any LL who *may* have failed to comply with deposit regs.)