Witholding depost in case of unpaid bills?

nikki_angel

Oh I see. Of course I would pay them but he isn't helping by keeping it for that reason lol!! I understand damages, bulbs and such like may need to be paid for too but am hoping to make this place sparkle so that no money will be witheld for that reason. His mum commented on how 'pristine' the place looked on Sunday, let's hope her other son who will be doing the check out thinks so too!

gamez-over

Lol...I know...but landlords are increasingly doing this now, and the tenants suffer because of it.

If you have a check in report, I would recommend going over it before you leave the property so you have an idea of what major differences (if any) there are. Do all the little bits that you can i.e. change light bulbs etc...that way you are decreasing the amount of deductions that can be made.

I hope that helps.

nikki_angel

Already done that but thanks anyway! I think the only thing is a couple of stains I want to get up off the carpet. Minor stains are mentioned on the inventory but it wont hurt to try and make them better, even if we didn't cause them. I really have loved living here, quite sad to be moving on.

Thanks for all your help everyone!

princeofpounds

Interestingly I didn't spot an unequivocal answer on the matter of deposits and bills. Landlords CANNOT withhold deposits on the grounds of utility bills. This is because the bill is a contract between tenant and supplier and nothing to do with the landlord.

To be fair, it is annoying for landlords to get debt chasing letters at the address, but that doesn't make it their responisbility to chase.

However, if due to bad payments a utility supplier has made unauthorised changes to a property (such as installing a prepay meter) then damages may come out of the deposit to fix the situation.

Furthermore, the deposit should be protected in one of the required schemes which prevents this kind of nonsense.

nikki_angel

Thanks PoP. I am hoping to receive an answer either way today about the deposit as I will give them a ring rather than wait for the email to be answered which may take a couple of days.

penguingirl

nikki_angel wrote: »

Already done that but thanks anyway! I think the only thing is a couple of stains I want to get up off the carpet. Minor stains are mentioned on the inventory but it wont hurt to try and make them better, even if we didn't cause them. I really have loved living here, quite sad to be moving on.

Thanks for all your help everyone!

Vanish do a carpet cleaner product (about £3 in supermarket) and it worked really well on a couple of little stains we had in our previous rental.

We had a similar problem when we vacated our rental in October- ended up not getting our deposit back until December because the LL wanted proof we had paid bills- in the end they gave it back when we pointed out that our deposit hadn't been protected (despite original AST stating it would be). The LL's argument was that they didn't want the next tenants to have problems setting up an account because ours hadn't been paid yet... it was very frustrating, but our landlords were very naive (we were their first tennants).

This was my similar thread: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2135211&highlight=

G_M

nikki_angel wrote: »

Thanks PoP. I am hoping to receive an answer either way today about the deposit as I will give them a ring rather than wait for the email to be answered which may take a couple of days.

Hi nikki - there are 3 different schemes (see my earlier post for the link). Are you contacting them all? Getting a 'no' from one does not mean the deposit is not lodged with one of the others, even though your AST says it should be in the TDS scheme.

nikki_angel

Yeah, sorry I should have been more clear G_M, I am phoning all three now. 2 down, 1 to go

nikki_angel

It's not protected

I am getting a statement written up so that we can all sign it to say early release with no fees or last month's rent required. He lives in London so am hoping that it is acceptable for his parents to sign on his behalf as they are local.

Do I wait to see if I get my money back before saying anything about it being protected?

nikki_angel

Spoken to landlord, he is emailing me a statement to say he is releasing us early with no penalty. Haven't mentioned deposit yet as we may well get it back no probs. My new EA are livid on my behalf though and keep shouting 3x deposit rah rah rah but I just want what we are owed and move on. They have thrown in a bit of a moral dilemma though and have said what about all the other tenants and it only takes it for him to go bankrupt for them all to lose their deposits too. OOOH one for the weekly email lol!!