Royal Mail could cost me £2000! Please help!

rafolio

Hello, I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a pickle and am praying that some of you guys can help me out....

In September 2009 I ended a tennancy in a London flat and moved up to Glasgow. In my opinion, entirely unfairly (I won't bore you with the details), the landlady, completely unexpectedly decided to claim the entirety of our £2040 deposit.

We agreed to use the ADR service through the DPS, and completed the relevant agreement forms online, before being told the matter had been passed to the ADR's team. This was about a month ago. After hearing nothing back for the past month, I became a little concerned and so logged back onto the DPS website to find that the status of my claim was 'AWAITING TENNANT EVIDENCE'.

Now this worried me further, and so I emailed the DPS, to which they replied that I had been sent a request for evidence on 24th December 2009, giving me a deadline of 7th January 2010, and because I had not replied my deposit was now being repayed (in full!) to the landlady.

Now I DID NOT receive this letter from the DPS! I changed my details on their website as soon as my tennancy ended to include my new forwarding address (this address is correct, I have checked again and again).

The terms are that they must receive a reply within 14 days of issuing their request, yet they sent the letter on Christmas eve, and we all know the recent troubles with the terrible weather in the UK. There is no post on Christmas Day or New years day obviously, so that immediately takes a couple of days for delivery out of the equation, that's without the weather problems.

I have contacted the DPS and all I get is an advisor doing their best impression of a computer by telling me that if theyve send the letter then they can assume Ive received it. Surely there can be some consideration for adverse conditions, etc?

I am a full time post graduate student and can not afford to loose £2000 because I have not received a letter.

Can anyone offer me any advice? It is much appreciated!

Thank you

Rich

rafolio

yeah cheers ILW

clutton_2

""After hearing nothing back for the past month" - why did you wait so long before chasing things up ? had you looked on the DPS website you would have seen that they were waiting for a response from you

you can hardly blame Royal Mail now can you ?

sorry to say but it was your reponsibility to read the T&Cs of the Deposit protection scheme and to respond accordingly ..... had you looked you would have known within the correct timeframe....

its time to take responsibility for your own actions here.



glad to see that DPS appear to be at least starting to penalise tenants as well as landlords.......

chappers

This is a problem highlighted again and again and it stinks, legal bodies should be made to use a more secure method of serving notices etc.
In the eyes of the law the post is deemed to be a reliable method for service of notice.We all know that is not the case, in the past couple of weeks due to the weather our post has been very erratic and then today I recieved to christmas cards both posted first class one on the 13th December and one posted unbelieveably on the 6th of December.
Have you tried speaking to shelter I think you may have to go down the small claims route here

rafolio

I did check didn't I? Or else how would have I known that they were awaiting my response?

Besides, you are missing the point - I didn't receive the letter asking for the evidence - surely the least I can expect is this?

There is nothing to say that the letter had actually been posted on the site, so even if I had checked the site 2 weeks ago, it would have still read 'AWAITING TENANT EVIDENCE', and I would have still had no idea that I had been supposed to receive a letter.

I really don't see how I'm not taking responsibility for my actions here! (what actions are these by the way?)

rafolio

chappers - thanks for the advice, I will take a look at Shelter.

I completely agree with what you're saying, I don't understand how all responsibility can be passed to Royal Mail for such important documents. Of course it needs to get to me but what I find utterly hypocritical is that the DPS advises tenants and landlords to supply their evidence via RECORDED delivery, yet they will not themselves do the same to make sure request forms get to us!

hjdx

Have you sent the information they've asked for now? (not wanting to sound like your mum, but worth asking)

I'd phone them up again and ask for an extension on this deadline due to the adverse weather conditions,

Start your phone call by writing down their name, or asking them for it, and then if you get another 'computer says no' person then I suggest using the line

'Well then <insert name here> as you are being uncooperative I want to speak to your supervisor'
but don't hang up until you have!!!

Also, once you've done that, send the info they needed straight away, and write a letter repeating your request for extra time given the size of the sum involved and the adverse weather etc etc,

And as to ILW's comment, come on! Academics don't need to be good spellers! Even if he's studying spelling!! Rich could be a maths PhD, or simply dyslexic, or just not a great speller... I imagine even ILW has spelled things incorrectly from time to time...

clutton_2

"" really don't see how I'm not taking responsibility for my actions here! (what actions are these by the way?)""

not familiarising your self with the terms and conditions, and timeframes of the whole arbitration process.....

if i was waiting for £2000 i would be checking and rechecking T&Cs frequently

Since the tenancy ended in September - you are already well behind the normal timeframes allowed for submission of evidence....

rafolio

thank you hjdx,

as Ive only found out about this today I haven't yet had the chance to send them the information (still don't really know what format to send in yet), but you are probably right with your advice, it seems a good idea to still do so. I will also try phoning them again like you suggest.

Thanks again

(p.s. for the record Im at architecture school - I've never met an architect who can spell properly so hopefully im in good stead! :-) )

BitterAndTwisted

I believe that the time for speaking to anyone on the phone ended some time ago. Write to the DPS folks and send your letter by Recorded Delivery including a time-line as to what was done, what was checked online and when.

rafolio

clutton wrote: »

"" really don't see how I'm not taking responsibility for my actions here! (what actions are these by the way?)""

not familiarising your self with the terms and conditions, and timeframes of the whole arbitration process.....

if i was waiting for £2000 i would be checking and rechecking T&Cs frequently

Since the tenancy ended in September - you are already well behind the normal timeframes allowed for submission of evidence....

the reason this has not been resolved as of yet is due to the landlord 'getting quotes' for the apparent work that needs to be done to the property. I actually initiated the repayment the day after the tenancy ended.

And as for the terms and conditions - do they not state that I will be supplied with a request for evidence and a deadline of 14 days?

As of yet I haven't been supplied with this request, so from my point of view it doesn't exist, and so their is no deadline.

What if this was the other way around? What if I'd posted my evidence in good time but because of the adverse weather conditions it did not arrive until, say, February?

Who would be to blame then....