Deposit not in a scheme

garfield33

Hi money savers, this one is complicated...

From what I can gather, two men, R and T, went into business together a few years ago – both provided capital and brought in investors; the properties are in T’s name (I’ve checked the land registry) but R dealt with the tenants and looked after the properties, T stayed out of the day-to-day management side of things.

I believe R and his partner C lived in the flat for a while as well, long before we moved in.

I moved into the flat in April 2009 – my flatmate had already been there a year, but during that year had dealt with R via a letting agents. She had had no problems. I paid the deposit to R, asked where it was going and got some vague mutterings. I should have pushed harder for details or walked away, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it was a truly lovely flat.

First few months – fine. Got repairs done when needed, even had dinner at R’s house. Then R and partner C moved to South Africa. We still got repairs done, it just took a little longer to arrange. We have an email address, landline and mobile number for him, but no postal address.

Then the silent partner ‘T’ got in touch telling us to pay the rent directly to him, as R had not been passing on the rent to cover the mortgage. We told R and he dealt with it – said T didn’t understand that our rent had to cover bills/repairs for all the properties, as the rent for the other properties went directly to T. This happened a couple of times, and T got more and more pushy.

Then we started getting letters from bailiffs, and overdue bills for C and R (who are of course now in South Africa, but seemed to be using our flat as a contact address). I regularly emailed R, who arranged for a friend to collect the post every few weeks.

In October we found out R had been declared bankrupt (we’d received a letter from the Insolvency Service), but he assured us this did not affect our tenancy as he was merely the ‘agent’ and the property was in T’s name.

To cut to the chase, we got sick of the scary letters (we even had bailiffs turn up one day), and T kept pestering us to pay the rent to him – we didn’t know who to trust, so decided to hand in our notice and move out – we left in May 2010.

Throughout all this, R had been very amicable, saying what wonderful tenants we were, and how he was sorry to lose us and that we could stay if we wanted, he would ‘protect’ us from T etc. He said the business was in trouble, and he was working with the investors to get T removed as he was causing problems (like losing tenants, including us).

But now that we want our deposits back – nothing. My emails have been ignored (previously he’d reply within the hour, when it was to his benefit). I have spoken to him on the phone once, and he said that the solicitors required a 60 day notice period to release the deposit – so clearly it was not in a deposit scheme. Since then I have been unable to get hold of him at all, and those 60 days have passed.

Where do we stand? It sounds like our deposits were never in a scheme, so can we take R to small claims court? Does it count if he was only the agent and not the owner? And he’s in South Africa, and bankrupt!

I’m not hopeful, I’m just glad the deposit isn’t a massive amount of money (I’ve seen posts on here from folks in a much worse position). However it is my money and I would like it back.

Thanks

00ec25

who is named as the LL on your tenancy agreement? - they are the people you sue. If it is R and his UK business is bankrupt then you are going nowhere

are the LA still involved? A recent post on here implied that agents may be held jointly liable for protecting the deposit in some cases, might be worth following up

clutton_2

if one is abroad and the other is arguing with him... you wont get your deposit back... i very rarely advise this.. but if you did not pay your final months rent.. what would they do ?

garfield33

Thanks clutton and 00ec25 -

The owner (T) is named as the LL, with R as the "agent". However we really p****d off T when we decided to move out rather than pay rent to him, and from what R says, he may be bankrupt soon too!

And no, the letting agents were not involved in this tenancy (judging by some of the arguments between R and T, they're well out of it).

We did pay the final month's rent, sadly. Sometimes I wish I wasn't a stickler for rules!

N79

T is the one to take to court, not R. You can use the address given on the tenancy agreement for T. It may well be R's old address but it will get the process started.

Of course, enforcing a judgment will be difficult. You will probably have to go for a charging order on the flat and hope that there is some equity if T does go bankrupt.

garfield33

Well we do have T's address (he wrote to us demanding rent payment to him), I just don't know if the money is worth the aggro all that would entail. But on the other hand, why should they get away with it?

Note to self - always use the deposit scheme...

clutton_2

""Note to self - always use the deposit scheme... ""

it was up to your landlord to lodge your deposit in a deposit scheme when you moved in .. he could be made to pay you 3 times the amount of the deposit if you take him to court ... he may rather cough up the deposit now than risk that.....

garfield33

Thanks Clutton - so it's the owner of the flat (T) who is liable, even we dealt with R for the tenancy?

Also, could anyone give me an idea of the process for taking someone to the small claims court? I had a look on CAB but wasn't able to find much (probably looked in the wrong place).

Thanks MoneySavers,

Trollfever

Advice from CAB on Small Claims Court:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_rights/legal_system/small_claims.htm

tbs624

If you want to pursue the LL for non-registration of the deposit and a potential 3x deposit penalty payment see here:

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/docs/infoabout/housing/section-214-application.pdf

You use form N208.

garfield33

Just found out that the agent (R) has been back in the country and stripped the (now empty) flat of all the white goods and valuables, yet still no sign of that deposit. Git, utter utter git.

I realise I could pursue the LL (T) for the deposit, but I'm not sure all the aggro would be worth the money we're owed.