Royal Mail could cost me £2000! Please help!

BitterAndTwisted

It doesn't really matter now. GET WRITING!

clutton_2

in view of DPS representative's recent postings this week it will be most interesting to see if this case is "reassessed" - as Kevin Firth said


"""Whilst the decision is not appealable - we will have cases re-assessed, on request, if you think the process has not been followed correctly or all evidence was not taken into account.""

HOWEVER DPS T&Cs also say that all decisions by Arbiters are unappealable... so i have no idea what "re-assessment" means


it would be interesting to know why the LL is claiming the full deposit - this is very rare indeed....

rafolio

On the case as we speak BitterAndTwisted.

Clutton - I will let you know the decision they make (if I don't you can presume they didn't "re-asses" it!). As for why the landlady claimed the whole of the deposit, it's a long story, from a possibly bias point of view, she is a first time LL, and it became apparent very early that she had little idea of the role of a LL. The claim was initially for only £50 (which she wanted me to pay to her personally, but which I refused out on the principle that I didn't agree with her request, and that it seemed a little suspicious).

There are further reasons why I personally believe she is claiming the entire £2000, mainly to do with recooperating the unexpected costs incurred to her throughout the tenancy due to the poor workmanship of the original refurbishment.

custardy

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

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.

given trhe monies involved i would be using special delivery

N79

chappers wrote: »

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

1. DPS is not a legal body it is a private company - this is why the legal safeguards that exist with the courts do not apply and is why I believe that this sort of justice on the cheap is fundamentally wrong (although deposit protection is fundamentally right).

2. A court does not deem post to be a reliable method of service. However, first class mail does create a rebuttable presumption of service. If this dispute was a court case then the OP would probably have little trouble (provided that they are able to present a believable reason) in getting a court to assume that the notice was not served. This is why myself and others on this board always recommend that LLs service notices on Ts twice, using different post boxes (courts usually fail to believe that 2 seperate letters went missing).

3. It is not possible to use recorded mail for serving notices because of the ease with which they can be rejected.

4. You would not want to pay the costs of having every letter from the DPS being personally served (another recommended option for LLs with difficult Ts).

chappers

N79 whilst I agree with all of your above points. I still stand by the general premise of my post. That the post is regarded as a suitable method of serving notices and the TDS will have met their obligagtions, by posting a letter through the post.
However to post this request on christmas eve seems to have been a bit silly, just ahead of aperiod where the postal system would have been inactive for 8 out of the allowed 14 days

N79

chappers wrote: »

N79 whilst I agree with all of your above points. I still stand by the general premise of my post. That the post is regarded as a suitable method of serving notices and the TDS will have met their obligagtions, by posting a letter through the post.
However to post this request on christmas eve seems to have been a bit silly, just ahead of aperiod where the postal system would have been inactive for 8 out of the allowed 14 days

And I completely agree with your premise that posting on Christmas eve and allowing only a standard 14 days is not very fair.

The_DPS_company_representative

Rafolio - If you let me have your name as soon as possible I'll review your case as we certainly do make allowances for postal delays over the Christmas period.

[Deleted User]

This sounds like a case of two crossed wires and I hope that this gets resolved to your satisfaction.

It would be ridiculous for the DPS to enforce a strict 14 day deadline by posting a letter on Christmas Eve at a time of unprecedented postal problems caused by major snowfall across the UK.

Clutton - I think you were a tad unfair to the original poster. I don't actually see what more they could have done. They had no means to know about the strict 14 days limit and they chased everything as early as they could expect to have done so.

To the OP: the fact that the LL wanted £50 and now is challenging for £2000 suggests her arguments might be a little flimsy, so good luck!

clutton_2

bungle ... ""They had no means to know about the strict 14 days limit "

oh perleeease .....

tenants are just as capable of READING as landlords are ...


How the DPS works is fully explained on their website - this OP has been using that website.....


Even if they are not given the proper prescribed information about the relevant Deposit scheme by their landlord then they must find out for themselves by reading the website or phoning up and asking...

as someone said on here a week back - why should tenants expect to be nannied ?

As i said a while back if someone owed me £2k i would be checking daily what was happening......