Please help re flat deposit

EagerLearner

Thanks C & TheSaint - to be honest - I suspect that if we go to mediation she will say something like 'ok, you don't owe me £500 odd, let's say you just owe me £300 odd' (!!!!) :rotfl:

Does the mediator have final say? If they say she owes us £550, presumably we will end up chasing her in court for the money anyway?

barnaby-bear

EagerLearner wrote:

the word 'dust' is repeated so many times in the inventory that it is clear that (maybe) cleaning would have applied but the rest is wear and tear, but then, with building works in the flat 3 weeks prior to moving out we couldn't get every last bit of dust from wverywhere. I mean, they even said 'top of doorframe' dusty - that's going so low!

Did she send in cleaners after the building work? If not surely it's her building dust?

EagerLearner

Hi BB - no she did not send in cleaners, it was just Gloria by that point. It was Gloria and a guy who did the work to start off with, then just Gloria finished it off as by that stage it was tiling etc that she would do on her own. presumably Gloria swpt up and cleaned round the bath a bit but nothing major round the rest of the flat.

clutton_2

the mediator does not make a decision him/herself - s/he brokers an agreement/compromise between the two of you.

Yes, she may well not pay if an agreement is reached, but the court would take a really really dim view of her if she did that, and i doubt ANY court in the land would then find in her favour.

and yes you will still have to go thru the court to get the money.

EagerLearner

I know what you mean - I just worry that if she is already so stubborn as to include the £470 incurred between her and the letting agent (which is nothing to do with us), if we spend £50 an hour for mediating we would be worse off.

At the end of the day, if a mediator or the judge found in our favour, we have then spent £50 an hour for mediation, then £100 for Allocation Questionnaire if she does not pay, then Bailiff fees to recover our money...

barnaby-bear

EagerLearner wrote:

Hi BB - no she did not send in cleaners, it was just Gloria by that point. It was Gloria and a guy who did the work to start off with, then just Gloria finished it off as by that stage it was tiling etc that she would do on her own. presumably Gloria swpt up and cleaned round the bath a bit but nothing major round the rest of the flat.

Wonder if Gloria, the landlady and the dungerees tried out the new bath.... :eek: keep that mental image..... keeep that mental image......

EagerLearner

EEEEEeeeeEEEughhhhh - no - no... not an image I want!

BobProperty

Depending on how clever you are at exploiting what is said, when was the cleaning done and when did Gloria (was it?) do the decorating?
If the cleaning was done before the decorating, then prove the decorator didn't make the mess.
If the cleaning was done after the decorating then why was the cleaning necessary, unless the decorator is a complete cowboy and paints onto dirty surfaces. Any pro decorator would include for cleaning down what they were painting and wouldn't work where dust would get on their new paintwork.

clutton_2

EL """"spent £50 an hour for mediation, then £100 for Allocation Questionnaire if she does not pay, then Bailiff fees to recover our money...""

i am led to believe that all these costs you incur can be added onto the claim at the end.

In my own court case, the other parties defence has not included a set amount of money of their countersuit - merely what category of expense -

""court fees - to be determined
Witness expenses re travel to and from court at courts discretion
loss of earnings at courts discretion"

i think this "un-quantified" list is an attempt to bully me -= just like your LL !

She is trying to frighten you - this what she as been doing since day one.

EagerLearner

Thanks BobP and Clutton - Bob - the cleaning of the property by their chosen cleaning company/people was done after we checked-out, so would have been after the 7th June (which was the day that the check-out took place).

The cleaning that Gloria did was each day (supposedly) and just in the bathroom area. She did not get a feather duster out and clean the entire property every time (I imagine not anyway...) Therefore dusty tops of doorframes, tops of doors and other areas that we did not think about cleaning no doubt were dust from when they gutted the bathroom, removed old tiles, cut new tiles to size etc.

C - re the costs i know that in a fair world we would get them back, but if it all goes pearshaped in the real world, we will have lost 1 or 2 hours in mediation fees for someone who is one track minded (taking into account she kept our £625 deposit AND is now claiming we owe her an additional £500+++ !). It is still early days and we will see what court docs say - presumably, she has the same form to fill out, so do we wait and see if she fills hers out first? She will prob leave it to the last minute, just like the defence paperwork last week.