left tennancy nearly 2 months ago LL wanting money need help urgently

klee1505

hello,

i left a property at the end of Jan due to problems we had with the landlord as he was very agresive and rude and would not get work done that needed to be done. we aggreed with our landlord and letting agents and had it in writing confirming we will be leaving the tennancy early.
i have had no corospondance with him since we left not 1 phone call or email at all,
today he has text me saying we owe him £1450 due to the state we left the house in??
we deliberatly made sure the house was clean and tidy before we left and to be honest we left it in a better state then when we moved in!!!

now i really dont know where i stand with this and what to do to be honest.
im not at home at the moment but im pretty sure he has to contact within 1 month of leaving the property regarding any work that needs to be done? and before he actually does the work he is meant to inform us within 1 month?

i really need some help ASAP as i dont know what to do
thanks alot

princeofpounds

Are you in England & Wales or Scotland?
Was there a deposit?
When did the tenancy start and was it an AST?
Were inventories taken on entry and exit?

PS don't panic. They cannot get any money out of you before going to court so you have weeks to address this.

G_M

To add to the questions above:
Was the deposit, if any, protected in a deposit scheme?
Was the deposit returned or are you still waiting for it, in which case what have you done about getting it back?
has the LL given you a complete breakdown of what the £1450 is for, with contractors' quotes for any relevant work?

This LL has a long way to go before you will feel any heat or need worry at all.

ps - DON'T respond to his text. Text is no way to do business. If and when he WRITES to you with a full breakdown of his claim, then and only then do you need to respond. Ignore him.

klee1505

Im in england. there was a deposit but it was given back to the landlord as a condition of us leaving the property early. we moved into the property on the 29th may 2009 and left on the 29th jan 2010 (sorry not sure what a AST is )

inventory was done when we moved in but we dont know about moving out. to be honest i really dont think so because the letting agents would have informed us as we have been speaking to them regarding the deposit up untill last week so they have not mentioned this. but we where not informed about this.

klee1505

G_M wrote: »

To add to the questions above:
Was the deposit, if any, protected in a deposit scheme?
Was the deposit returned or are you still waiting for it, in which case what have you done about getting it back?
has the LL given you a complete breakdown of what the £1450 is for, with contractors' quotes for any relevant work?

This LL has a long way to go before you will feel any heat or need worry at all.

ps - DON'T respond to his text. Text is no way to do business. If and when he WRITES to you with a full breakdown of his claim, then and only then do you need to respond. Ignore him.

ok thank you i will not respond to him. bassically i do just think he is trying to scare us into giving him money. no he has not given me a break down he has just said you own us this money we want it ASAP due to the state we left the house in. as mentioned above the agreement we had was that he would keep the deposit if we could leave the contract early

G_M

AST = Assured Shorthold Tenancy.

So the deposit was in a registered scheme and you agreed to its release to cover rent arrears, yes?
The inventory at the start was signed by you?

I still would not worry. a) sounds like any inventory/condition check was done without your presence, some time after you moved out. You could easily argue that the condition was fine when you left and deteriorated later before the check was done.

I don't suppose you took photos of the conditionj when you left?

Either way - until you know what 'damage' is supposed to have been done costing 1450, AND until you get a formal claim (not a text!), you do not need worry.

klee1505

no we didnt have time to get photos as the agency told us on the 28th that the landlord had agreed to our terms to leave the propert ( he was making it as hard as he could giving us bassically 24 hrs to get out ) so we had to pack and move in 1 day so we didnt actualy finish untill midnight that night so we didnt have time to take photos.
but i would have thought that we had to be informed that they where checking the house and would we like to be there? i just dont know what to do

klee1505

he has just called me and left me a voicemail i havnt listened to it yet but i know its going to be abusive should he still be sending it through letter and not phone?? im on contract so im going to contact t mobile today and ask them if they can change my number as he will call me every half hour till i contact him

BitterAndTwisted

In the first instance I would contact the letting agents and ask them for sight of the check-out inventory if they carried it out.

After you've done that contact the landlord IN WRITING only by Recorded Delivery requesting a full breakdown of what monies they believe are owed. He can't just pluck a figure out of the air, so don't fret about any of this just yet.

It sounds to me like either the LL is adding on unpaid rent which was due before you left or he's charging you for the rent due to the property remaining empty but either way he needs to justify the full amount in writing.

DVardysShadow

klee1505 wrote: »

he has just called me and left me a voicemail i havnt listened to it yet but i know its going to be abusive should he still be sending it through letter and not phone?? im on contract so im going to contact t mobile today and ask them if they can change my number as he will call me every half hour till i contact him

If it is abusive, keep a record of it. Don't change your number, let him carry on being abusive - it is all more rope to hang him with later.

klee1505

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

In the first instance I would contact the letting agents and ask them for sight of the check-out inventory if they carried it out.

After you've done that contact the landlord IN WRITING only by Recorded Delivery requesting a full breakdown of what monies they believe are owed. He can't just pluck a figure out of the air, so don't fret about any of this just yet.

It sounds to me like either the LL is adding on unpaid rent which was due before you left or he's charging you for the rent due to the property remaining empty but either way he needs to justify the full amount in writing.

the landlord now has his money from the month we owed him ( by the way the only reason why we didnt pay our last months rent was because we withheld it due to the work not being done in the house)so it cant be that because he is now fully upto date with the rent.