Problem with deposit

Nortonowl

I am a student and i am sharing my accommodation with 6 other people. Recently, we have become concerned about not receiving our deposit back, mainly due to the fact that our estate agent and landlord are haphazard when we have made complaints about the state of the propety. We have had problems ranging from the boiler breaking to unsafe firedoors which were only eventually fitted once the health and safety expert harassed the estate agents.

We have lived in this accommodation for 21 months and in the meantime the previous estate agents have ceased to exist as a company. We have receipts to prove that we paid our deposit to the previous estate agents. We did not pay any further deposit upon agreeing to rent this property for an extra 12 months. Unfortunately, we do not have any details of the Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme, and we are unaware if indeed the deposit is held in this scheme. Upon contacting our present estate agents about our deposits they have directed us to the landlord who claims he has not received the money back from the previous estate agents. I am unaware of whether the landlord is responsible for our deposit or whether the previous estate agents, who are no longer a company, should be responsible. Thus, i am extremely worried about not receiving our rent back as with 7 of us living their the deposit amounts to over £2,000.

I have been told by various people to with hold the last months rent as the property is in the same condition as when we moved in and this would prevent us not being able to get our money back. Although, having read various threads on here, i am concerned about the legal implications of such action. What rights do we have and how can we ensure we receive our deposits back?

clutton_2

whoever you gave the deposit to - it is the landlords legal responsibility to return it to you - whether his agent has closed or not..

i assume you have a receipt for it ?

did you all sign an inventory when you all moved in ?

ceh209

I guess the first thing is to confirm that the deposit isn't protected - you can call up the three schemes with your details and check.

Then if you find it isn't (which you're fully expecting i guess) then write recorded delivery to your landlord requesting that he does this - you can take him to court for 3x the deposit as a fine if he doesn't! There'll be a template letter around here somewhere for that I'm sure...

The landlord is responsible for the deposit, not the agents. And if the agents haven't passed the money on to the landlord, that's something for the landlord to pursue with them, not you.

G_M

ceh209 wrote: »

I guess the first thing is to confirm that the deposit isn't protected - you can call up the three schemes with your details and check.

Then if you find it isn't (which you're fully expecting i guess) then write recorded delivery to your landlord requesting that he does this - you can take him to court for 3x the deposit as a fine if he doesn't! There'll be a template letter around here somewhere for that I'm sure...

The landlord is responsible for the deposit, not the agents. And if the agents haven't passed the money on to the landlord, that's something for the landlord to pursue with them, not you.

Correct. You can find details of the 3 schemes and how to contact them here.

Your contract is with the LL, not the agent, so deal direct with him, in writing. His name/address should be on your contract. If not, write (WRITE, not phone, not text!) to the current agents asking for his address. They have 21 days to tell you otherwise you can stop paying rent till they do provide his address.

HE is responsible for your deposit. If 'his' agents (ie the original ones) failed to either pass it to him or lodge it in a scheme, that is HIS problem, not yours.

Nortonowl

Hi thanks for all of your replies, they have gone some way to easing my concerns!

Yeah we have receipts for our deposit. Sorry for my ignorance - what is an inventory?

I have visited the tenancy website you have listed before and the lead tenant of our house (not me) is certain that he never received any information about the tenancy deposit scheme from any of the 3 different companies listed. I have e-mailed our Agency asking for our landlords address so that i can contact him with my querires. I am beginning to wonder if my deposit is protected at all... It does not say anything about where our deposit is held in our original contract signed with the first agency... I guess my next step is to contact the deposit schemes individually to see if any of them are in fact protecting our deposit.

Nortonowl

Right i have checked with each of the deposit schemes and we are not registered with any of them.

I will need to discuss the next xourse of action with my housemates but if we were to go down to route of suing the landlord what action would we need to take... Thanks again for all your help.

N79

Nortonowl wrote: »

Right i have checked with each of the deposit schemes and we are not registered with any of them.

I will need to discuss the next xourse of action with my housemates but if we were to go down to route of suing the landlord what action would we need to take... Thanks again for all your help.

With such a large house can you just confirm what the total monthly rent paid by all the Ts is? This may have an important bearing on whether the deposit should be protected.

Fire_Fox

Nortonowl wrote: »

I have visited the tenancy website you have listed before and the lead tenant of our house (not me) is certain that he never received any information about the tenancy deposit scheme from any of the 3 different companies listed. I have e-mailed our Agency asking for our landlords address so that i can contact him with my querires. I am beginning to wonder if my deposit is protected at all... It does not say anything about where our deposit is held in our original contract signed with the first agency... I guess my next step is to contact the deposit schemes individually to see if any of them are in fact protecting our deposit.

As already advised you need to WRITE to the letting agents for an address at which to serve notice on your landlord. The legislation does not provide for this information to be supplied following a telephone call, text or e-mail.

BitterAndTwisted

You can't sue the landlord unless they decline to return it. There's no point in trying to sue anyone until you give up the property at the end of the tenancy.

An inventory is a document, usually signed by both sides which describes the state of the property and all its contents at check-in. This is then used at check-out and any deficiencies, missing or damaged items will need to be paid for out of the deposit held.

The address for serving notices should be on your tenancy agreement. Do you have such a document in your possession?

Soot2006

With 7 people living in house very likely rent is over £25,000 p.a. in which case deposit protection does not (yet?) apply!

Nortonowl

Thanks for your replies, it really is much appreciated.

Rent is £2,123.31 a month...

Apologies i should have been more thorough when i read through your reply. I shall send them a formal letter shortly.

I can not remember signing an inventory, this may be down to the incompetence of the previous letting agency...

I do have a copy of both tenancy agreements to hand though (like i say we have two separate contracts - one with the previous estate agents which ran out on the 30th June 2009, who we paid our deposits too and they are no longer a company - and one with our present estate agents who do not have our deposit) ...