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New deposit laws
Comments
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Your wording here is sloppy and we need clarity in order to give you an opinion.
My question was "Can you confirm the start date of the last fixed period that you signed as well as its lenght? (You say you signed it on the 31st August 2008 but you do not state the term - precision here is very important). "
Please can you confirm the answer to this question - not when you signed the agreement as this is irrelevant.
Can you also confirm if you have written confirmation from your LL that you would be ending your tenancy on the 1st January? If you do then you can ignore all the above about the notice period being incorrect but will still need to deal with the argument that the non return of the keys could have given your LL the reasonable expectation that you were still in possession.
Here are the reasons why, in my opinion, it is so important.
If your term was the first of Sept for 6 months then you have a problem with your notice. This is because you notice has to be for at least 1 rental period. Since your rental period is monthly from the 1st day to the last day of the month this means that notice given on the 1st of December should have been for the 31 January. Notice for the 31st of December would have needed to be served on or before the 30th of November.
However, it gets worse. You left on the 1st of January so you started the January rental period and invalidated your own notice. This means that the LL could not rely on your notice to end the tenancy (and LLs are not allowed by law to end tenancies). This means that the surrender of your keys on the 18th could be taken to be your new notice - which would expire on the 28th Feb. This means you owe your LL two months rent - for January and February.
Most decent LLs don't worry about T notice periods being wrong but if you are taking your LL to court you must be aware of any weaknesses in your own case. Of course your LL may well be as ignorant of the law as most letting agents. However, you have said that they are likely to seek legal advice.....
I don't want to put you off claiming but these are issues you should understand before you start of down the court route as you may need to argue against them. Your LL deserves whatever he gets.
Given the above, maybe you should consider again going down the deposit non protection route as with that route non of the above issues matter as the mere fact that the deposit was not protected means that, even if the court orders the deposit protected instead of refunding it, you have a good chance that the court will award you 3x the deposit. The advantage of this award is that there is no right of set off against any counter claim by the LL for missing rent or damages so that you still get the 3x payment no matter what (even if the court awards you the deposit and then immediately orders you to pay it to the LL for unpaid rent).
I think you have the year mixed up, he signed in September 2008. So he was required to only give 1 months notice nearly 18 months later.0 -
littlejo26 wrote: »I think you have the year mixed up, he signed in September 2008. So he was required to only give 1 months notice nearly 18 months later.
No mixup - year is irrelevent. Aim is to determine the correct tenancy period and hence the correct dates for the notice as explained above.0 -
"""why didn't you put them through his letter box..?
What would be the good of that? I wanted a reciept so I could prove I returned them. Otherwise he could still say (and probally would) that I never sent them back.""
having an independent witness with you when depositing keys, who then signs a Witness Statement of Truth and writes a short statement as to what s/he saw is perfectly acceptable to a court as evidence of you having delivered keys or served documents.....0 -
having an independent witness with you when depositing keys, who then signs a Witness Statement of Truth and writes a short statement as to what s/he saw is perfectly acceptable to a court as evidence of you having delivered keys or served documents.....
A: I didn't have an independent witness with me.
B: Bit bloody late for that now anyway!
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""Bit bloody late for that now anyway""
but a useful piece of information for you for next time....0 -
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Guess what?
My ex LL just turned up on my doorstep with a cheque for our full deposit of £840.00 back!
He still had a couple of days to respond to the final chance I gave him before court action. He obviously didn't think much of going to court for the 3x deposit for breaking the law which unbeknown to him I wasn't going to do anyway as it was too expensive and not guarenteed I would win.
However, all is not well still because he has turned the tables on us and says to expect court papers because now he is suing US for the damages we (haven't) caused!
I think he is wasting his money as I think he can't prove anything unless he lies and tries to fake documents for the court.
Of course, this could all be hot air and we won't hear anything but I wouldn't put it past him...
Any advice now would be a great help? And also thanks to everyone so far who has got me my money back. Lets hope I can hold onto it! :j0 -
Sounds like hot air to me.
Don't lose any sleep over it until such a time as you get something in writing ( which I doubt you ever will )
Would love to see him stand up in court and explain to a judge why he gave the full deposit back but but now wants to make deductions.0 -
Colincbayley wrote: »Sounds like hot air to me.
Don't lose any sleep over it until such a time as you get something in writing ( which I doubt you ever will )
Would love to see him stand up in court and explain to a judge why he gave the full deposit back but but now wants to make deductions.
That's a very good point. I would like to see that too! :rotfl:0 -
What if the cheque bounces ? Could it be a ploy to get you to abandon the legal process ? I wouldn't trust this landlord.....:eek:0
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