Please help re flat deposit

clutton_2

EL - I tracked down the county court fee schedule

""Preparing for trial

Allocation to track:

claims for money of £1,500 or less no fee
all other claims £100

so, your Allocation questionaire will not cost you !! (I wish i had known this in advance, and i would have dropped the size of my claim a bit !!!)


Re what happens now - there should be a date on her defence docs by which you must respond.


http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/fees/county.htm

BobProperty

EagerLearner wrote:

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.......

Have you established a chronology of the events? It may be worthwhile just for your own benefit. It may also help your case and gain the judge's understanding of what happened when and who knew what, and when.
Then you can be sure of asking the right who did what, when? if it comes to it in court. You will also be showing that you have taken care in preparing your case and have got your story "straight". Having your story jump about and change as you go on (which sounds a bit like your landlady's approach) will not work with a judge, who is likely to be making notes and asking questions as things go along.

Gabs_3

If the LL didn't have the property properly cleaned after she did the work to the bathroom then she cannot prove that the dirt was yours. Infact it would be reasonable to assume that this dirt was caused by the work and rather than hold you responsible you should have been getting a reduction in rent for the inconvenience and mess caused.

There are many ways to prepare your evidence but I would take the approach of writing an in order timeline of events as a top sheet with reference to numbered supporting sheets which can be referred to for detail.

e.g. date moved in - ref documents 1(tenancy agreement) 2 (inventory)
I'm sure you get the idea.

This will enable you to talk the judge through events (you can make yourself some short notes) in a simple and ordered manner but immediately refer him/her to the relvant documents if they want more detail on any particular event.

I've seen the suggestions about mediation and although in many circumstances this would be a good idea, given her behaviour to date I think you would be gifting her a further delay.

good luck with whatever you decide.

furndire

Do you think that the LL from hell will think that she is scaring you and making you back off if you now ask for mediation - just a thought.

clutton_2

LL may well think that EL is backing off, but, that is not what is important - it is what the judge thinks that is important - he may well see is as crucial that EL is doing everything she can to resolve this (and if LL does not show up or agree, that will put her in an even worse light than before) - but it may cost EL unnecessary money. If i go thru mediation (and not wanting to hijack this thread, (i know EL understands that) i will come back and tells everyone what it is like.

furndire

I see what you mean.

wizzkid_3

Another 'lurker' here just coming out of the closet!

I too have been going through the roller coaster with you all for the last few months. I have not felt that I could offer anything to help. I have a tip for you though now EL.

We unfortunately had the joy of going through some legal stuff a few years back, one of the things that struck us was the shear volume of paperwork generated. Now that you have got so many pieces of paper, you might like to do what they do with the 'bigger' cases.

You need to get a big arch lever file and index cards. Then you make up a big file of everything with a reference sheet on the top.

So, you might have the first section refering to all details to do with the time you were renting, bathroom disruption, £80 hike in rent etc, then the next section to do with the demand for extra on top of your deposit, then maybe the next one all the correspondence trying to track her down etc. EAch page is numbered and referenced to the section it belongs to. When we did it we did several for the various parties involved.

It makes you feel so much more confident that you know exactly where everything is and it will make you look so much more efficient and organised. If she has a soliciter with her, they will do the same. (and charge her 25p + VAT per page of photocopying)

Hope this helps, and wish you the very best outcome!

clutton_2

what a brilliant idea !! thanks i may use that also

seabiscuit_2

Another lurker delurking to wish you luck (and wish we had had more guts to do this to one of our landlords who walked off with our deposit)

A thought crossed my mind (and I don't remember reading it in the previous 66 pages - sorry if i missed it)

have you contacted the current tenant to ask if any of the damaged items such as the blind / door frame are still in the property? And if they moved in after you, how clean etc and had it really been repainted?

EagerLearner

Thanks everyone - those are some great ideas - I know that the cleaning we did may not have been superhuman, but with cutting tiles etc for 2-3 weeks (she claims it was around 8 days!) lots of dust would have been generated, which by the time we got home would have settled (on top of door frames and doors!).

In terms of chronological list, we do have one in place as used for the letting agent case, which we will simply adjust.

I am not sure we have to bring in extra aspects like the £80 increase in rent as that was all done verbally, it depends if she brings it up really. We have no written proof of it.

In terms of our paperwork, believe it or not there isn't that much really, it's pretty much the check-in inventory, check-out inventory, our 3 warning letters and the items she has sent in now. We don't want it too cluttered and thought that the Lewes paperwork re her real address and other peripheral stuff like that is not relevant to this case as we have moved on from that and technically should only focus on what was deducted. I get a feeling though that she will try to bring in everything she can that is unrelated to her deductions so that the judge gets pulled in to our flat buying attempt, the fact that we asked if there would at any point) be gas heating rather than electric (she has even mentioned this in her response saying it was one of our requests that she did not acceed, 'all others were met' What others! We asked for a broken oven to be replaced, and in these court docs she claims we refused delivery!!!)

So you see what I mean - she is confused, has not checked what can or can't be deducted from a deposit, not has she checked whether a £470 bill between her and her letting agent can be passed to us.

Seabiscuit - re current tennant, we suspect deeply that she hwas told her about the 'horrible' last tennants and if we were to appear there the landlady would be getting a swift phonecall, which she would then use in her defence that we were harassing the current tennant...