Tenant wants Rent deposit via DPS? Advice??

Geenie

clutton wrote: »

under no circumstances use the DPS arbitration service - as they will pretty well automatically award in favour of the tenant - if you refuse to use their ADR service (arbitration) - the only way forward is for the tenant to take you to court personally to get their deposit back. If they tenant thinks they may lose - they probably wont bother with going to court, and eventually the deposit will be awarded to you.

you stand a much fairer chance of being able to present proper evidence to a court and to be allowed to argue your case properly in front of a judge in the small claims court than you can with DPS. They use anonymous arbitrators whose decision is final and there is no appeal whatsoever. They themselves say that LLS must provide incontrovertible evidence to prove ANY deductions. DPS is not a fair system.

More and more anti-landlord decisions are coming out of DPS in Bristol and so more and more landlords are not using them, or are using MYDEPOSITS, not taking a deposit at all, or refusing to use internal arbitration.

it was hard enough in court to convince a judge of the ethics and legality of granting deposit monies to landlords - it is now 10 times more difficult with the DPS

I find this quite disconcerting Clutton. I only chose the DPS because I thought it would show to tenants that I was above board, and had no designs on their deposits in any way. That said, if I had a tenant who trashed the place.....and I have in the past, I would hope that this system would be fair and see in my favour for any damage beyond the norm incurred.

Your post has given me concerns, not least because I never let a property until in top notch condition, yet the implication is that I could get stung for things a tenant does, with no recall to the DPS to claim on it!

Are you saying the DPS is a waste of time for LL's from experience, because if so I will move to some other scheme?!

SouthCoast

If your landlord does not protect your deposit using a tenancy deposit protection scheme, or will not tell you which scheme they are using, you can take them to court. The court will either order your landlord to pay you back the deposit or to pay it into one of the schemes. It will also order your landlord to pay you three times the amount of the deposit as a fine. If you are thinking about taking your landlord to court, you should get advice.
There is a special procedure which private landlords can often use to evict tenants without having to give reasons and without a court hearing.

However, your landlord is not allowed to use this procedure if they don't protect your deposit using a tenancy deposit protection scheme, or will not tell you which scheme they are using. If you landlord is trying to evict you, you should talk to an experienced housing adviser straight away.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/h_tenancy_deposits.pdf

ruggedtoast

clutton wrote: »

under no circumstances use the DPS arbitration service - as they will pretty well automatically award in favour of the tenant - if you refuse to use their ADR service (arbitration) - the only way forward is for the tenant to take you to court personally to get their deposit back. If they tenant thinks they may lose - they probably wont bother with going to court, and eventually the deposit will be awarded to you.

you stand a much fairer chance of being able to present proper evidence to a court and to be allowed to argue your case properly in front of a judge in the small claims court than you can with DPS. They use anonymous arbitrators whose decision is final and there is no appeal whatsoever. They themselves say that LLS must provide incontrovertible evidence to prove ANY deductions. DPS is not a fair system.

More and more anti-landlord decisions are coming out of DPS in Bristol and so more and more landlords are not using them, or are using MYDEPOSITS, not taking a deposit at all, or refusing to use internal arbitration.

it was hard enough in court to convince a judge of the ethics and legality of granting deposit monies to landlords - it is now 10 times more difficult with the DPS

As far as I am aware its not up to the landlord to decide whether TDS is fair or not, you're legally obliged to use it. I have had to gently remind my last two landlords that they are obliged to present the insurance information for my deposit to me within a maximum timeframe (2 weeks or something).

If they hadnt complied with this I would have immediately assumed they were as dodgy as hell and started legal proceedings to recover my money.

tbs624

ruggedtoast wrote: »

As far as I am aware its not up to the landlord to decide whether TDS is fair or not, you're legally obliged to use it....

I think you are misinterpreting Clutton's post: she is not saying "don't scheme-register a deposit". Clutton started a thread a few weeks ago about a decision made in her tenant's favour by DPS - on the facts she gave many of us felt that the decision was wrong. She is saying "don't use the deposit scheme's arbitartion service": both parties have to agree to the service being used and, if they don't , then either party can use the courts.

Just to save general confusion, there are three schemes DPS (Deposit Protection Scheme), TDSL (Tenancy Deposit Solutions Ltd /Mydeposits) and TDS (Tenancy Deposit Scheme). The first is the free to use custodial scheme, ie the funds are transferred to the scheme, and the other two have charge for registration & are insurance based, ie the LL/LA retains the actual funds.

clutton_2

""she is not saying "don't scheme-register a deposit"."

all my deposits have been registered since day one of the legislation.

""then either party can use the courts""

this is what i intend to do in the future - at least with a courtroom you know that a judge is fair-minded, has experience and will listen to both sides of the case equally - unlike DPS who have openly admitted that they will always rule in favour of a tenant until the landlord proves otherwise.

I spoke to a large letting agent in lancashire last week, who has also lost several deposits via DPS which she feels she would certainly have been granted by a judge.

if DPS think one party is lying - they will say it is the LL who is lying - and there is NO APPEAL - and DPS is a private limited company and is not monitored by any government watchdog body.

read up on www.landlordzone about DPS poor decisions.

Geenie - be prepared to submit more evidence to the DPS than you would have to present to a court in order to get your money back if a tenant trashed the house or does not pay rent

tsstss7

clutton wrote: »

""she is not saying "don't scheme-register a deposit"."

all my deposits have been registered since day one of the legislation.

""then either party can use the courts""

this is what i intend to do in the future - at least with a courtroom you know that a judge is fair-minded, has experience and will listen to both sides of the case equally - unlike DPS who have openly admitted that they will always rule in favour of a tenant until the landlord proves otherwise.

I spoke to a large letting agent in lancashire last week, who has also lost several deposits via DPS which she feels she would certainly have been granted by a judge.

if DPS think one party is lying - they will say it is the LL who is lying - and there is NO APPEAL - and DPS is a private limited company and is not monitored by any government watchdog body.

read up on www.landlordzone about DPS poor decisions.

Geenie - be prepared to submit more evidence to the DPS than you would have to present to a court in order to get your money back if a tenant trashed the house or does not pay rent

Clutton I take it you refer to cases where there is only verbal evidence from both parties?

In that case wouldn't it be fair for the dps to rule in favour of the tenant because this shows the ll has clearly not done part of their job correctly (not collecting evidence during the checking in and checking out inventory)...in which case it might well be reasonable to assume they have done other things incorrectly also.

If the LL has a proper paper trail then a reasonable claim would be heavily evidenced I would say.

Infidel

buckman wrote: »

Thanks Guys.. it always seems stacked against the Landlords, any legal thing like this....

Yeah right. :rolleyes:

clutton_2

all evidence to the DPS arbitration service has to be in writing. If there is a dispute about a fact - the DPS will accept the tenants version every time. In my own case the tenant (lyingly) alleged she had always agreed to only rent for 6 months - but had no written proof to that effect. My own case was that she gave me 3 days notice by text. I was claiming the full deposit in lieu of notice.

I lost - as DPS believed the tenant - and refused to recognise L&T law.

Lavendyr

Has the OP ever confirmed whether an inventory was taken at the start of the tenancy or not? That would seem to be fairly pivotal in proceedings, surely...

buckman

Lavendyr wrote: »

Has the OP ever confirmed whether an inventory was taken at the start of the tenancy or not? That would seem to be fairly pivotal in proceedings, surely...

Yes invantory was done with the agency so believe she would have signed the contract