Please help re flat deposit

jennynoo

Hi Guys

Need some advice. Not sure about the protocol of this so if I should be starting a new thread please let me know. As you know I send three letters to my landlady for with holding my deposit for 'damage' to a sofa. Today I was due to submit the court papers but last night she sent me an email shown below.

>>Thank you for your letters regarding the sofa at xxx, sorry I have not replied sooner but I have a rather busy schedule involving children and work and caring for my grandmother who is very ill, and also I have been away.

In regards to your letter claiming that I have withheld your money so that I ‘better my property’, I am afraid that is simply not true; when you took tenancy of the property I had just finished a complete refurbishment which included a new bathroom, re-wiring, re-plastering, new flooring throughout the entire flat and new furniture and fittings. The sofa in question was a couple of months old at the time and in new condition, I had paid £650 for it from IKEA and was a little annoyed that you had managed to break both the armrests completely. While I appreciate that some wear and tear will occur to all furniture, fittings and flooring I do not believe that the damage incurred to the sofa is wear and tear; in this instance wear and tear would constitute the sofa cushions losing shape or the leather wearing thin in places, or marks being left on the sofa, all of which apply in this case and for which I am not charging you. The armrests have been broken simple because you have used them to sit on and place unnecessary weight on where it should not have been placed. The armrest as the name suggests is a rest for your arm and not an extra seat on the sofa. Both the armrests have caved in and the right side especially is loose and feels as if the entire side will come away from the sofa. Further I have the same sofa in a three seater version which is used far more I imagine then yours due to my kids and general busy traffic through our home and the arm rests on that are fine – because we do not sit on them – if as you suggest the arm rests on your sofa had collapsed due to wear and tear then similarly the same would have happened to mine.

I spoke to Foxtons about this matter and asked their advice as to how much to deduct but they simply stated that it should probably be the cost of a replacement sofa like for like. Since these sofas are now cheaper in price than 2 years ago, I charged you the current price for them, which is £575 (I actually charged £580 as it was what I was quoted at the time by a sales assistant). I choose IKEA to buy my furniture because of the ease with which I can do so, as you know all the furniture I provided you with was from IKEA and all brand new – I like to provide good, clean furniture and fittings for my tenants and if you recall your washing machine in the flat did not work properly when you moved in and I had it replaced with a nice new one – I did not buy you a bargain second hand one.

The carpets in the flat were brand new when you moved in; they have been left in an incredibly dirty condition and I am having them professionally cleaned as well. The bathroom was also newly fitted as were the all the taps and fittings. I have enclosed a picture of the bathroom tap and shower attachment and as you can clearly see it is completely encrusted in lime scale as is the hosing – that is not wear and tear, that is simply due to the fact you have not cleaned it adequately whilst you have been there. It will now require some serious elbow grease to get it looking clean again.

I had considered returning a further £130 to you as you were, during your time very good tenants and I thought that I would bear some of the cost of the sofa myself, but since your departure I have received and electricity bill for £158 which is outstanding from your residency at the flat and further I spent £50 having the flat cleaned for the next tenant who is now in the flat.

Since you have been disputing this deposit amount I have not as yet bought a new sofa, and told my tenant that one will be provided when this matter is resolved. As for your claim that I am withholding the money for improvements to the flat: I do not think the sum is large enough to do anything of the sort. I have attached pictures of the damage to the sofa, and if you go to the IKEA website and look up Karlanda leather sofas, you will be able to see the same sofa costs £575 new with a £45 delivery charge.

There is a lot of wear and tear to the flat, which I have accepted but unfortunately, and as the pictures illustrate, the sofa is damaged and broken and needs replacement and that is why I have deducted money from your deposit. Further I now have an outstanding electricity bill, which I am trying to resolve, and also the cleaning of the carpets and bathroom fittings, which have been left quite dirty by you.

I hope this clarifies the matter for you, I am sure you’ll be in touch,
>>

She may have had the flat rewired - the fuse box looked new but the man who fitted the washing machine said our electrics looked dodgy and that we should be careful. We couldn't turn our toaster off at the wall or all the electrics would turn off, this doesn't happen in our new flat.

We did not sit on the arm rests, one side of the sofa was against the wall the whole time and the other side had a chair next to it (it was a small flat). I've been in her front living room and she definitly did not have the same sofa!

We did clean the taps at least every two weeks but there was paint on one side and I think I damaged the surface when I was trying to get the paint off and since then it always crusted over with limescale and anyway the washers had gone after the second year and I had a plumber look at them but he said because of the type it was impossilbe to get to the washer and the whole piece would have to be replaced. As a result when using the shower most of the hot water would go through the taps down the drain. However because we were planning on leaving soon we didn't bother asking her to replace them.

The electricity was using a prepay key fob so I have no idea how she can have an electricity bill.

The flat was not clean when we moved in and apart from some dirt on a spare bit of carpet in the hallway the rest was clean.

I'm really offended by her comments saying we didn't clean as we did at least every two weeks clean the whole flat. We also put up with a lot like a burnt out cupboard in the kitchen from the previous owner, windows that let in every draft - even after we put loads of draft excluder round every window. A boilder that broke down every winter, a shower that just dripped, ceiling paint that fell off etc.etc.

She sent pictures of the sofa, they were all taken after we left and we can't really tell if they look worse or not than when we left them. Due to a hard drive death we only have one photo of the sofa but you can see one side sagging.

Can anyone offer any advice on how I should preceed and if you think we did damage the sofa or not.

Thanks

prudryden

Jenny -
I think this is going to be a tough one. She may be prepared to negotiate on the deduction. In any case, a judge will want to see your reply to her letter. He will want to see some sort of negotiation taking place even if in the end it is a total stalemate.

The most crucial item will be the check in Inventory/Condition Report and the subsequent check out report. Did you agree and sign those two items?

jennynoo

Hi Prudryden thanks for your reply.

There never was a check in or check out inventory, our landlady never asked for one. I think we did take some photos but these were lost when our old hard drive died and we wrote a list of items she supplied us but we didn't put their condition and she didn't sign the list. Her photos were taken after we left so we haven't got any evidence either way.

prudryden

Jenny -
I still find it incredible that people who think they are entrepeneurs and business minded fail to have a simple Inventory/Condition report. They do not deserve to get damage payments.

Having said that, it will be very difficult for the LL to convince a judge to allow her to keep the deposit for damages. I wouldn't worry too much about losing the pictures. They don't count as much as generally believed. Even if they are time stamped, the time stamp can be altered.

But for the sake of limiting stress etc., decide what you would be willing to part with, if anything, and offer below that amount. She will probably come back with another offer, then you raise yours and on and on until you find a level satisfactory to both.

RabbitMad

clutton wrote:

you can just stay in your current flat till April 6th ! - landlord can't get you out without a court order after all !! make some excuse about being let down with accommodation etc etc

Wouldn't that be a breach of contract allowing her current landlord to claim damages?

If my tenant refused to leave I'd start court precedings to get them out and bill the client for this cost. I'd also sue for damages caused - e.g. loss of rental income fromt the time the existing tenant left to getting a new tenant (assuming I had somebody lined up straight away that I then lost due to the tenant not moving out) or if I was selling it, a months interest on the mortgage etc.

Chemgirl

Once you come to the end of a contract you can stay on a rolling contract. You have to give your landlord 1 month notice of when you want to leave and the landlord has to give you 2 months notice if they want you to leave, of course you still have to pay rent so the landlord can't claim loss of income. If you've given your landlord notice already then you'll have to be nice to them to be able to stay and it might not be possible as they will probably line someone up straight away.
I was with an agency once and they insisted that if we wanted to stay on in the flat we had to pay them another agency fee (of over £100 for them putting a contract together!!!) to re-sign a contract but we didn't want to sign a contract as we didn't know how long we wanted to stay. We quoted the 1988 housing act and they let us stay without paying the fee, in theory the landlord could've asked us to leave but they had to give us 2 months notice and they didn't bother, I think they were happy as long as they had a tenant, the agency were just trying to swindle us out of more money.

jennynoo

Hi Chemgirl

When my last tenancy agreement ran out we weren't sure when we were going to leave as we were looking to buy and our landlady was thinking of selling the flat so we signed another year agreement but with a clause saying we could leave with one months notice. We did this twice and had to pay the letting agent £70 each time for one bit of paper that I could have written in my sleep. Are you saying we could have just stayed there without a further agreement? This would be interesting to know.

EagerLearner

Jennynoo - sorry to hear about your troubles - obviously, I know what you are going through! Your landlady is cut from a very similar cloth to mine - I don't know the situation, but at least yours bought you new stuff... we got a rancid retirement flat, which is *now* nice! Anyway - I agree with the others and suggest you get yourself a nice short letter off, quoting juicy bits from the ARLA website where it says only a percentage of damages should be claimed and that she should not get new for old. Make it short and sweet and let her know that should it go to court you will be allowing the judge to decide if deposits should be used to buy brand new IKEA sofas.

My opinion is that the letter should be neutral and swift - mentioning only that wear and tear is allowable and that new items should not replace old ones. That you want to negotiate.

Good luck and let us know how you get on!

jazmad

I've followed this thread for the last few weeks since it was in the weekly email. Quick note to say all the best EL. Having just moved out of a rented house (relatively pain-free from a deposit point of view) you have my total sympathy and support.

Jennynoo - Following this thread and doing other research, it seems to me the bottom line is if there's no inventory, the LL will struggle to deduct anything legally. They have to prove you committed the damage. If they can't prove the condition at the start of the tenancy, they can't prove you damaged it. Whilst you will be expected to try to negotiate by the courts (otherwise, you are less likely to be awarded costs), if you are confident the LL won't be able to prove you damaged it, then you can be confident a court would find in your favour.

Any offer should bear this in mind (also of course, you may be prepared to make an offer to avoid the hassle/uncertainty of court). I'd be careful what you say, especially in writing. Admit nothing!! If you do decide to make an offer, I'd use non-specific phrases such as 'to try to bring this to a swift conclusion, we are prepared to accept a deduction of £x' rather than 'we feel compensation of £x for the damage to the sofa is appropriate'.

Also, read your tenancy agreement re: bills and cleaning. Whilst it can say 'the property needs to be professionally cleaned', I've read some debate on whether this is a 'fair' clause if the propoerty cannot be proved to be clean when you moved in. A tenancy agreement is only binding if it is considered legal and fair.

jennynoo

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I think I know what I need to do now. As an aside - I rang my works wellbeing help line which offers legal advice but their information was no where near as good as what I have got from reading this thread! :beer:

I tried to contact ikea but they wouldn't discuss the sofa without its order number which I don't have. I also emailed a couple of furniture repairers and their quotes varied from £190 - £650!

Might sit down tonight and try to write a reply. After my yoga class so I'll be all nice and calm