Please help re flat deposit

prudryden

I would get it to the court in order that it can go into the "bundle".

glitterygert

totally agree with prudryden.

glitterygert

clutton wrote:

with a fan with such a blissful and brilliant name as ""glitterygert" you cannot possibly give up !!!!

thank you clutton.

Mrs_pbradley936

I have only ever been to a County Court small claims hearing twice but both times the person bringing the case was asked for a verbal account and then the other person was asked for their version. Where there was a difference of recollection both were asked if their statement could be verified (presumably by letter, witness and nowadays email or text).

You already have judgment against the wicked witch by default because she ignored the Court summons. The agents submitted a defense and your main argument is that
· they knew the matter was in dispute but chose to ignore that and give your money to the landlady. When did they tell you that? I know they said they gave it to her in August but when did they tell you was it after they had been named in the Court summons?
· that they have refused to provide you with information to which you are legally entitled i.e. landlady’s address so that you could take steps to get your money back.

You can add that they would not be cooperating now were they not forced to due to a Court appearance. I would add that they are still doing business with her.

EagerLearner

Thanks all - headaches still coming and am starting to think of not taking the agents to court. Mr EL and I spoke about it at length last night and when it comes to the crux of it, taking them to court will not get us our money back. We might be better focusing on the landlady in January.

All the court appearance would do is maybe, maybe in bets case scenario embarass the agent, but still no money for us, and stress 2 days before going on holiday to Thailand. In worst case scenario, the judge says we have wasted his/her time and we have to pay legal costs for agent, 2 days before leaving for Thailand.

We're stressed with xmas coming up as it is and just the thought of not having the court case to worry about almost brings relief.

In answer to questions, the letting agent only told us last month that they had given her the money back in August.

barnaby-bear

EagerLearner wrote:

Thanks all - headaches still coming and am starting to think of not taking the agents to court. Mr EL and I spoke about it at length last night and when it comes to the crux of it, taking them to court will not get us our money back. We might be better focusing on the landlady in January.

But the agent has the landlady's contact details and you aren't certain you do, the agent failed to originally provide you with a valid contact address as legally required on AST and as such has cost you expense and time and meant you couldn't pursue the landlady before August i.e. their actions delayed you. I'd go just for the issue of the AST nt having valid contact address and returning the deposit taking ARLA etc guidelines along.

prudryden

Concur with The Bear.

EagerLearner

Thanks - but won't the LA just say 'the c/o address is what we were given by the landlady'? That's what we had on our contract and they had no other address for her. This was address #1.

We then found address 2 via the internet ourselves, her 'real' address that she had given to no-one, not even the agent. We therefore started court case with address #2.

We presume she then moved from #2 to new address #3 in August, which the letting agent gave us details of in October.

Therefore, the agent have given us the address details she has given them at all times, except this last time they took a while to tell us.

glitterygert

Me too, surely the LA, has a duty of care to you, please don't give up now, you have come such a long way.

irnbru_2

glitterygert wrote:

surely the LA, has a duty of care to you

Not necessarily, as EL has found out.

IIRC, the LA was not acting as a management agent.

What EL and the LA will dispute is whether the terms under which the deposit were held were followed.

EL will argue that the LA were negligent in not resolving the dispute, not securing bona-fide receipts and returning a deposit while a dispute was in progress.

The LA will argue that they offered an escrow service where the deposit was returned once the LL had deducted any charges.

The judge may award against the LA if they consider that the deposit returned was a breach of the contract.