Help needed! £400 taken from my deposit.

rasinkernow

Please bear with me as it is complex and i think i've made several mistakes in the renting of this God foresaken flat.

Basically, my wife and i rented a flat in November of last year, signing a tennancy for 1 year. We paid £700 deposit (our honeymoon fund) AND 1 months rent of £565. An oppertunity arose for us to move to free accomodation with my wifes job in July. When we (eventually) managed to get hold of the agency looking after the property, they said it would be fine to break the tennancy with a months notice in which we would pay rent in full. Then another memeber of staff told us it would be one months notice to end the contract we were in followed by another months notice to say we were leaving. Also they told us that there would be a "nominal" fee taken from our deposit to pay for advertising the flat for rent.
Long story short after handing over the keys and leaving, almost a month later, after so many phone calls and emails i cant count, we recieve our deposit back at £240. £460 short. £60 VAT. To us this seems unreasonable. The only reasons cited are advertising and early realease.
This is more than slightly annoying, and has wound us up no end.
My questions are: Can i ask them to provide receipts for the advertising?
Can i ask them to provide justification for the huge cost? How? Should i cash the cheque? And is this a reasonable ammount?

I have nothing about this "nominal charge" in writting. The woman im dealing with is also very, very hard to contact directly. And none of the other employees seem too keen to help either.
Thanks in advance Rich

ceminem

Would you rather pay for every month remaining of the signed tenancy instead?

rasinkernow

is that the normal procedure?

Zazen999

Well, they have lost income when they were expecting to have it until your year's lease is up - which means empty house + advertising.

There's always a fee for leaving a property earlier than expected.....check your contract for the detail as it should have been in there.

Geenie

OP, I'm afraid that if you signed for 1 year but move out early, then it is quite common practice to be charged for doing so, including the costs to the agents/LL to find other tenants, as you haven't fulfilled what you agreed to. You need to read your AST and see what it says on the matter, as I am sure it will mention this somewhere. Then you can see if you have been charged unfairly. Good luck.

rasinkernow

Thanks for the input. I don't suppose it matters that on the day that we handed over the keys they were handed straight to the new tennent. As there organisation skills ment the new tennent was there at the same time as us. Also we have paid a propotionate percentage of the rent up until that date so with the new tennent arriving on the day we left, and stopped paying, ergo NO loss of income to them at all. Don't suppose that matters though?

Zazen999

No need to get all uppity - if you'd given ALL the information in the first post then maybe people would help you a bit more.....rather than give half a story and then change it after some responses.

rasinkernow

Im sorry if i seem uppity, that is not my intention at all. I genuinly apreciate any feedback and apologise if my tone is misinterpreted. Im just trying to get all the information from people who know more than me. If it seems like im asking stupid questions its because i do not know the answers. If it sounded sarcastic it wasn't supposed to it was a genuine question. i apologise. Been a long night.

asharon

Paying for advertising seems fair but the fact that they had new tenants in so there was no lost rent I would be querying the amount taken. Try to talk to the people you initially spoke with and ask them why so much has been taken. Put the ball in their court by asking questions. You can always say once they have said there reasons that you will get back to them rather than replying at that time.

rasinkernow

Thanks, im calling daily and leaving message for the agent but shes hard to pin down. And clearly not in any hurry to ring me. Would i be within my rights to ask for reciepts for advertising costs?

chickmug

I feel you need to reflect on this and think, on the other hand, that you could be lucky. You were let off early even though you signed up for a full year and I know plenty of LL's who would have found ways of getting a lot more from you. That is if they had agreed to your terminating the tenacy early.