Please help re flat deposit

EagerLearner

Welcome to the MadHouse EarthMother, InfoAddict & Elspeth...

I am so glad I am very busy right now not to give it much thought - I am Eagerly awaiting next Wednesday at 17:00 so at least we know what the heck is goin' on...

Do keep checking in - you never know what the postman might bring. Nor how many times he may call

EagerLearner

Hi all,

Just a quick update - not much news but the court have today written to us officially stating that the judgement has been set aside and that the defendant has 14 days to submit their defence.

The deadline ends 17:00pm Wednesday 31st next week.

hjb123

Hope all goes well for you. This has been such a gripping thread to read - think Martin needs to put the outcome in his weekly email!

John_Pierpoint

prudryden wrote:

Fraud is probably one of the hardest activities to prove in court - ranking right up there with trying to prove someone was incompetent to make a will on the day and hour and minute the person wrote the will. Even the Inland Revenue loses almost all their cases of fraud.

We now have a new "Fraud" act - let us hope the government-old bill-crown prosecution service will take it seriously. Perhaps like DNA evidence it can be used to reach back into old cases ?

This link takes you to a summary of what seems to be happening; it is in a thread in the credit card FRAUD area. CARD FRAUD and IDENTITY FRAUD seems to be getting out of control. All these scumbag fraudsters need to have their collars felt.

TTFN

John

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=4047671

RobertF_2

The law is changing regarding deposits being held by a third party and not the landlord, probably due to the likes of your type of landady.I believe it changes in April, most councils have a private sector lettings team.They will probably be able to offer some advise and may even help. As a landlord I always put my deposits in a savings account and the tenants earn interest on their deposit
Robert

EagerLearner

Welcome John & Robert and thanks for your info - as for now we still have no news and deadline is 5pm tomorrow.

We also spoke to our current landlord last night, he told us before Christmas that he wants to sell the place. He gave us first refusal and came down last night to talk to us - wants £185,000 for a 1 bedroom (garden) flat, which is just impossible for us as 1st time buyers in Brighton.

We now will have to start looking, again. We didn't want to leave our old property (the one with the deposit problems) and we don't want to leave this one. The old one we left because she wanted private tenants and whilst we were there, she was tied to the agency and she wanted to make more money. This one, he wants to sell now as he is finding it hard to pay the mortgage with the interest hikes, plus there's a few things wrong with the place like the boiler and the damp, and either one could cost him a huge bill at any minute, so it's also about money.

Both moves were not our choice and about landlords wanting money - aaargh.

Needless to say, anyone on here know anyone that has a 1 bed flat to rent in Brighton area, do PM me as I am today going to start looking for places available in end of Feb...

clutton_2

why not put a thread up on https://www.singingpig.co.uk in the BTL section - hundreds of landlords read that - you may be lucky.

EagerLearner

Thanks Clutton - have registered and posted a message, we will see if anyone answers us!

Sybarite

RobertF wrote:

As a landlord I always put my deposits in a savings account and the tenants earn interest on their deposit
Robert

Then you are a very unusual and exceptional LL, I'm sure your tenants welcome your principled stand.

I've never really understood why, as the deposit belongs to the tenant, interest can be earned by the LL, but this isn't required to be passed back to the tenant.

littlesaint

Hi EL,

Sympathise with the fact you have to go through all this again while you are still sorting out the deposit from your old place. Me and my flatmates are currently waiting to find out if our landlady is happy for us to stay on at our current place - she's being very tardy with her reply. I hope we can. I'm really not ready to move just yet!