Made a mess of being a Landlord

terryw

OP,

You have made mistakes here. Others have pointed this out. The stuff about illegal eviction is a bit over the top. If the tenants had let this go to court, your Sec 21 would be invalid as the deposit was not registered and a possession would not have been granted.
But it was up to the tenants to raise this as a defence and allow a judge to decide if they did not wish to vacate. I am sure that they knew this as they look to be very clued up.

Your priority is, if humanly possible, to get the deposit registered.

sequence

pop they are already out ?

980233

princeofpounds wrote: »

N79 is the only person to have given you the proper advice here on the deposit.

Quick history - at first courts were unwilling to award 3x penalties when compliance was late. When it was quickly realised that was far too lenient on landlords and not in line with the law then most courts started to award the penalties. None of these were at a level high enough to set precedent.

Then a few months ago one case was appealed and a first precedent has been set. It's a bit technical, but basically it states that you can only be held to the penalty if you failed to fulfil the initial conditions of the tenancy deposit schemes themselves. Only one of the schemes, the DPS, actually made on-time compliance part of their internal conditions (mostly it was assumed this was a requirement under the law, which it turned out not to be) and they only did this after many months.

So currently most landlords will get away without the penalty if they comply late. Now this is known it is quite likely the schemes will adapt their requirements at some point - as has been pointed out one already has, so you don't want to pick that one.

There is a nice explanation of all the developments on nearlylegal.co.uk if you look up the 'tenancy deposit schemes' key phrase.

This doesn't appear to be simple case of compliance being late as its gone far beyond that by serving the invalid section 21 and now chasing the tenants for disputed monies. Case of horses, stables and bolting.

Its like I burn my house down and then arrange the insurance and play around with the date of my claim.

I don't underststand the advice to get round his responsibilities so long after the event being a great way. If the said tenants came on here they would get 95% of posters saying hammer the irresponsible landlord.

980233

princeofpounds wrote: »

Oh, and ignore pyueck and the Hugh Jarce sockpuppet(?). Serving an incorrect notice is nothing like illegal eviction and you will not get in trouble for it.

However, without a proper notice you can't even begin the process to get them out. Protect the deposit, re-issue the S21 and also S8 if possible.

Make sure you have your dates etc. correct on the notices. Visit landlordzone for a guide to the process.

You clown he has already kicked them out !!! Through the process he shouldn't of been using, I suggest you read more throughly before calling people sock puppets.

clutton_2

has anyone else tried saying Hugh Jarce out loud?

terryw

clutton wrote: »

has anyone else tried saying Hugh Jarce out loud?

Yes, but so anal and infantile.

980233

terryw wrote: »

Yes, but so anal and infantile.

Who are you? The user name police or something?

princeofpounds

You clown he has already kicked them out !!! Through the process he shouldn't of been using,

Well, you are right I missed the part about them moving out. However, if they chose to move out thanks to a S21 notice that happened to be invalid, that is not illegal eviction, that is a voluntary surrender of the tenancy. Stupid on the part of the tenants perhaps, but not a legal issue in the slightest.

And as for the issue of supporting a landlord who has not fulfilled their obligations - I actually agree this landlord should be penalised. Late compliance is almost as bad as no compliance, because there is no security for the tenant should the landlord default in the meantime.

However, given they politely asked a question, I am politely helping to answer it. At least they recognise their mistake.

980233

princeofpounds wrote: »

Well, you are right I missed the part about them moving out. However, if they chose to move out thanks to a S21 notice that happened to be invalid, that is not illegal eviction, that is a voluntary surrender of the tenancy. Stupid on the part of the tenants perhaps, but not a legal issue in the slightest.

And as for the issue of supporting a landlord who has not fulfilled their obligations - I actually agree this landlord should be penalised. Late compliance is almost as bad as no compliance, because there is no security for the tenant should the landlord default in the meantime.

However, given they politely asked a question, I am politely helping to answer it. At least they recognise their mistake.

Ermm I think they only recognised their mistake after the clueless tenants asked advice from a family member. The OP's alarm bells only started ringing once they were asked to produce the details of the deposit scheme. Prior to that they were happy enough to try to start online claims to recoup money, its a bit far fatched they realised the error once documentation was asked for. They hadn't reckoned on somebody else getting involved on the ex tenants behalf. Best bet is to offer the deposit back citing time and effort too much and take a hit on the over estimated damage and hope thats the end of it.

silvercar

I doubt these tenants are clueless. They chose to not pay the last months rent, have you forgotton that?