Desperately need help with claiming deposit back

BitterAndTwisted

Completely agree with talulahbeige: stop communicating with the agents by email and start writing formal letters and send them by recorded Delivery keeping a copy for your own records.

No check-in inventory equals no deductions.

pyueck

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Completely agree with talulahbeige: stop communicating with the agents by email and start writing formal letters and send them by recorded Delivery keeping a copy for your own records.

No check-in inventory equals no deductions.

Agreed, although legally its the landlords, not the agents responsibility to return your deposit, so you should send the recorded letter to them. Really the agent is nothing to do with it, and I see them more as a roadblock. Attack the party that is responsible.

One trick is if the property is held in a partnership (as many do for inheritance tax avoidance) send the letter to the weakest member of the partnership. In a partnership all members of the partnership are jointly and wholly liable for the partnerships debts. You normally get one person who runs the thing and others who just take their share of the profits. It really ruffles feathers if you threaten legal action to the 18 year old who knows nothing about the property, but if they are the partner they can be sued.

N79

pyueck wrote: »

One trick is if the property is held in a partnership (as many do for inheritance tax avoidance) send the letter to the weakest member of the partnership. In a partnership all members of the partnership are jointly and wholly liable for the partnerships debts. You normally get one person who runs the thing and others who just take their share of the profits. It really ruffles feathers if you threaten legal action to the 18 year old who knows nothing about the property, but if they are the partner they can be sued.

Umm - not sure what any of this means. If the LL is a partnership then any notices need to be addressed to the partnership - not to an individual. The partnership will have an address, probably on the tenancy agreement otherwise C/O the agents - this address should be used. There would be no point sending letters to individuals in such circumstances - especially if they have a different address. Of course the partnership may have an individual name to receive correspondance, in much the same way as ltd companies would have a company secretary.

Also a partnership (which is very rare in the LL world - a ltd company is much better) would not be an efficient vehicle for inheritance tax avoidance but a joint tenancy could be. Are you confusing the two? Either way it is not relevent to the OP.

N79

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

No check-in inventory equals no deductions.

Not quite - if a LL has other means to prove the state of the property at check in and check out then these would do fine.

No check-in inventory equals probably no valid deductions unless the LL has some other proof of the property state at the tenancy's start which is acceptable to a court.

pyueck

N79 wrote: »

Umm - not sure what any of this means. If the LL is a partnership then any notices need to be addressed to the partnership - not to an individual. The partnership will have an address, probably on the tenancy agreement otherwise C/O the agents - this address should be used. There would be no point sending letters to individuals in such circumstances - especially if they have a different address. Of course the partnership may have an individual name to receive correspondance, in much the same way as ltd companies would have a company secretary.

Also a partnership (which is very rare in the LL world - a ltd company is much better) would not be an efficient vehicle for inheritance tax avoidance but a joint tenancy could be. Are you confusing the two? Either way it is not relevent to the OP.

You are not correct, you are confusing the difference between a company and partnership. A partnership has no legal identity in its own right, unlike a company, therefore it is just effectively an amalgamation of sole traders. You when you sue you sue the individuals, see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ihtmanual/ihtm25091.htm. It is up to the partners to decide how to split the costs between them afer the case, but you really can sue any of the partners directly. Just remember to put Joe Bloggs 'trading as' X Partnership, when you send your letter.

pyueck

N79 wrote: »

Not quite - if a LL has other means to prove the state of the property at check in and check out then these would do fine.

No check-in inventory equals probably no valid deductions unless the LL has some other proof of the property state at the tenancy's start which is acceptable to a court.

Also see http://www.lawpack.co.uk/Files/SampleChapters/SC_P208.pdf, good on suing advice.

N79

pyueck wrote: »

You are not correct, you are confusing the difference between a company and partnership. A partnership has no legal identity in its own right, unlike a company, therefore it is just effectively an amalgamation of sole traders. You when you sue you sue the individuals, see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ihtmanual/ihtm25091.htm. It is up to the partners to decide how to split the costs between them afer the case, but you really can sue any of the partners directly. Just remember to put Joe Bloggs 'trading as' X Partnership, when you send your letter.

Yes, I agree you can go after any of the partners but

i) for enforcement it is better to go after the partnership itself as you are after the threat against assets to assure your payout (in this case the properties)
ii) a partnership is rare in the LL world (ltd companies are much more common because of the benefits they provide)

and, more importantly, at a practical level any court action will need to use the correct address or it is fairly easy to get it set aside.

Edit: your second link concisely explains the reasons for sueing the partnership. An 18 year old will never pay the debt so why bother with special hearings to go after partnership assets.

pyueck

N79 wrote: »

Yes, I agree you can go after any of the partners but

i) for enforcement it is better to go after the partnership itself as you are after the threat against assets to assure your payout (in this case the properties)
ii) a partnership is rare in the LL world (ltd companies are much more common because of the benefits they provide)

and, more importantly, at a practical level any court action will need to use the correct address or it is fairly easy to get it set aside.

Edit: your second link concisely explains the reasons for sueing the partnership. An 18 year old will never pay the debt so why bother with special hearings to go after partnership assets.

I agree, I would never sue the 18 year old, but what it does do is ruffle feathers. Very often its the dad that runs the thing and they put the child in the partnership for tax reasons. If you send the letters to the child then your action will cause great confusion and arguements within the family. "What do you mean they are threatening to sue me, I was told putting me on the partnership was just an admin thing.

delirious

Sunshine12 wrote: »

Theres a suprise!!

Check the tenancy agreement first and if it doesnt refer to any inventory I would write to them again requesting a copy of the inventory by return (refer to your previous e-mail and "note that you have not yet received a response"). I wouldnt go into too much detail with them until they come back to you advising that there isnt one! Put a read receipt on your email as well and advise them that this is urgently required as they would appear to have omitted to provide you with one when you took occupation. You could, if you wanted to, advise them that if no inventory is given by X date that you require return of your deposit in full.

Thanks for your suggestion.

I replied to the letting agents email by requesting the inventory and have just had an interesting response from the manager stating they do not have record of my inventory for the start of my tenancy but she listed all the things they will be claiming for.

I am going to reply stating that I will be disputing ALL deductions via the TDS as they have nothing to compare the current condition to the original condition.

Anything else I should say?

And yes, I will also be sending this via recorded delivery.[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

neas

most of the points are ridculous but the dog one i tend to side with estate agent. and the coving one... i agree with too. If you make decorations in a property and leave it half finished it affects re-rentability.

speaking generally, when you have a fiancee... you've been A- dating a long time prior to getting engaged... say 6-12 months at least..... and with this knowledge assuming she had the dog for the same period of time... and you spent 50/50 time at her and your property ... then the dog most likely was there for at least 3 months of 'time'.

Regardless of dog... they do leave odours... might !!!! a little here and there... so if its obvious a dog was there (dog hair and smell) then morally you'd be obliged to get carpets cleaned methinks.

Now legally.. thats a different matter. Just wanted to point it out that even though you have bias i can tell that most likely the dog had some impact on the property... it would have if lived there for say 14-30 days... and if you got fiancee and a long contract chances are it did live there,fart there, malt there, lick itself etc etc for that time leaving smell and some hairs.