Landlord nightmare!!!!

shuttleworth96

My daughter and 5 friends are due to move out of their rented accommodation at the weekend and, so far, have been unable to contact the landlord in order to arrange a check out report, hand back keys etc and, most importantly, return of their £3600 deposit!!!!!! He is ignoring all their calls and e-mails and hasn't responded to her new letting agents letter for a character reference. The original estate agents who advertised the property don't want to know, which is not surprising, as they only advertised the property and were not the managing agents. Anybody got any ideas what she can do!!!!!!!!!!!

davesgirl_2

how did it go? hope you got it all sorted and everything went well with move;)

sue_balu

R U sure the Landlord's contact address isnt on the tenancy agreement? I understand an address must be disclosed
If so do a recorded delivery letter or make a personal visit.
Of course it is holiday season & s/he could be away???

black-saturn

How long have they been trying to contact him? He may just be on holiday or something. If she has no joy within the next week i would suggest they go to the Citizens Advice Bureau or a solicitor to sort it out. If they are not working they should get legal aid.

F_T_Buyer

If you do leave a property and do not have a check out report, take pictures of the place, and I don't mean one or two. Get a few disposable cameras and take loads and loads of photo's.

If something does go to court, you can use this as evidence.

Oh, and this happened to me at uni. So I turned up at the landlords door, and refused to leave until I was given a deposit.

shuttleworth96

Things have just a whole lot worse!!!!!! There are two landlords named on the tenancy agreement. Have managed to get in touch with one of them and she says she has nothing to do with the property now, she is suing the other landlord for £10,000 and my daughter will have to pay for an inventory checkout herself and then get a solicitor to pursue return of deposit. I managed to get through to this woman at 8 this morning and explained that as her name is on the tenancy agreement so cannot just abdicate her responsibilities and she put the phone down on me!! Just don't know what to do next.

babe_ruth_3

shuttleworth, hope you don't mind me asking bu how come it was such a large deposit?

shuttleworth96

It was a 6 bedroomed house and all the tennants paid £600 each

Barcode

When this happened to me, I went through the small claims court; but I don't know if £3000 ish is too much to be covered through that. You do need to take photos of EVERYTHING, as a common problem is that the landlords will claim 'cleaning' costs. Unfortunately, since it is a group of students, some may assume that the landlord is correct.

Take photos of ALL walls, windows, doors, appliances etc to confirm that nothing is damaged or unclean. Also, if there is a garden, you might need to tend to that (one of the first things my old landlord tried on was to claim we had not tidied the garden). Again, take photos.

If this landlord is on some sort of list held by the university (mine distributes lists of landlords/properties to help first year students find somewhere) then make an official complaint. It will cost him business when students start avoiding the place.

Unfortunately, I've found that too many landlords like to rip-off students on the assumption that they will accept any old line as the truth, since it is (in many cases) their first time living indepedently and won't know any better. Seems that your daughter has fallen victim to such a nasty type.

Stubbarama

You can claim upto £5000 thought the small claims / County court.

You would need to pay a fee £125? but all expenses can be claimed back if you win.

surfcat

shuttleworth96 wrote:

Have managed to get in touch with one of them and she says she has nothing to do with the property now,

Whatever she tells you, she is still the landlord as her name is on the agreement.

my daughter will have to pay for an inventory checkout herself

Your daughter will only have to pay for checkout if that was stipulated in the original agreement. Otherwise the photos thing is a good idea.

get a solicitor to pursue return of deposit.

No, a few quid at the small claims court will do the trick (you may need to split the amount claimed into individual chunks to get below the limit). No expensive solicitors involved.