Landlord Demanding All Our Deposit Money.. Help!!!

tbs624

FOURCANDLES wrote: »

Saying all this if I as the tenant was asked for a wad of my deposit and I was confident I had handed it back as given to me I would argue the case that is what I would do . But lets be honest on this one most people hand over on the grounds they need to rent again possibly from the same EA so will lose money instead of rocking the boat and risking have a problem renting in the same area.

If I had a potential T apply to me and I learned that they had previously had a successful dispute over the return of their deposit, backed up by either atenancy deposits scheme arbitration or a county court judge, it would not affect my decision one way or another.

In the vast majority of cases LLs lose to their Ts because either (a) the T was in the right and the LL was in the wrong or (b) the T may have been in the wrong but the LL was sloppy in their business methods, so effectively dug a tunnel beneath his own case.

No T should feel " blackmailed" into not pursuing the return of their deposit if they have a justifiable reason for challenging their LLs assertions

MissMoneypenny

FOURCANDLES wrote: »

But lets be honest on this one most people hand over on the grounds they need to rent again possibly from the same EA so will lose money instead of rocking the boat and risking have a problem renting in the same area.

Blackmailing a tenant to pay high charges, is one of the reasons the deposit protection schemes came in.

I'm sure that a tenant who had been "rocking the boat" through the tenancy deposit schemes over extortionate charges, would not put a decent landlord off that tenant. Tenants' don't want the other sort of landlord.

MissMoneypenny

FOURCANDLES wrote: »

No not at all all prices are clearly explained prior to a deep clean taking place £95 of the fee is for an oven clean. our prices are very good a £100 for a proper deep clean sounds very cheap however the floor space is small , BUT how many staff , materials etc etc to me that would be for a very light lick around and are they insured ? and I do not meen public L for 1k some cleaning companies carry low insurance because they knock your expensive ornaments over, knock your telly off the wall spill bleach on an expensive carpet will say to the owner this is what you are getting no more (you invited them in to your home they do not need to give you a penny)and to be honest in those areas there is a large economic migrant immigration issue where they are happy to work for £8 ph and please no bigot comments because it was not ment to be that type of comment, in our Book it would just cover the oven clean and vacuum of the ground floor.You basically get what you pay for and we do not compete with people we consider to be charging to little it is a case of take it or leave it no hidden extras .

They don't have to inflate their charges to skim some off the top for themselves, as they mainly do the work themselves and have long standing, fulltime staff. Yes they are insured, have had the family cleaning business for over 40 years and they only have Sundays off as they have so much work.

wIcKiD

Thanks for all your replies and suggestions. This has given me some courage to go ahead and challenge this. I was at the verge of giving in thinking about the time and money it is going to cost me running behind this.

The Letting Agent told us that the landlord wanted to change the carpets in the other rooms and paint all the walls as well to which they did not agree. It is clear that the landlord wanted to use our money to rent it out to new tenants.

Below is the breakup they have given us

Cleaning: £150
Garden: £200
Bedroom Plastering: £135
Bedroom Carpet (slightly stained): £175
Window Lock: £10
Wallpaper (slightly peeled off): £200
Mattress (slightly stained): £135
Move Out Fees: £47
Contractor Call-out: £15 (+vat)

TOTAL: £1069.63

Now, to challenge this, do I raise it with DPS? Does it cost me anything to do this? How long does this normally take?

Thanks!

angelofmel

sorry to steal a thread, but just a thought i've had: if a house was in need of a thourough clean when someone moved in, and when they moved it was returned in a better state but still not 100% perfect, can a landlord charge for a light clean out of the deposit?

wicked, well done for deciding to challenge. set up the dispute with the DPS on your account, yes. You can put on the how much you wish to dispute...either all or an amount you find reasonable for the work you agree needs to be done. I've been told the dispute could take a few months :S however any money that is not included in the dispute will be returned to you in 10 working days (or so the DPS say!) As for costs, if you take it through the DPS, they offer a free service to settle the dispute, and once they decide, the outcome is final.

BitterAndTwisted

angelofmel wrote: »

If a house was in need of a thorough clean when someone moved in, and when they moved it was returned in a better state but still not 100% perfect, can a landlord charge for a light clean out of the deposit?

No, they can't if the condition at the beginning and at the end of the tenancy could be proven. It's knowing in advance that proof will be needed that's the hard part

LindsayO

wicked, I was in the same position as you and I just wrote back and said I didn't agreed, and itemised the costs that I thought reasonable. The landlord pretty much agreed and we settled it that way.

wIcKiD

Quickly.. If a carpet has a burn mark (from iron), can it not be cleaned at all? If it cannot be cleaned, do the tenants have to pay for replacing the entire carpet for the room? Also, will it cost £175 to get a carpet fitted in a decent size double bedroom? Thanks.

Svenena

Was the carpet new when you moved in? Because otherwise they can't charge you to replace it with a new one, so this will impact the cost.

Why are you being charged for plastering the walls? What's wrong with them?

clutton_2

AS a LlL i can see this from both points of view...

tenants frequently make marks on painted walls by scraping when moving furniture, hanging pictures, using blu-tack etc etc and then expect a LL simply to paint over the mark... Decorating does not work like that, and in pretty well most cases the whole wall needs redecorating....

Whether a LL could claim for the whole room to be repainted as well is a moot point... i guess it depends on the length of time the tenant was in situ and whether the old paint has aged sufficiently for the new wall to look substantially a different colour....

Re marks on carpet.... for example red wine is almost impossible to get out of carpets... unless the spiller soaks up the wine with plenty of household salt immediately it is spilt.....

I would claim a new carpet - and would give a % discount off the new price for each year of age of the carpet.... I would probably need to show the receipt for the carpet to get a fair assessment by DPS arbiters

I would hope that DPS would also take into account the overall standard of the property's decor and furnishings when decided if a whole room/adjoning space also needed recarpeting.... This can only really be done by photographs

I get ovens cleaned (Iincluding hobs and shelves and grills) from £110-150 depending on which part of the country....

so £350 for a deep clean (including oven) could be a decent local rate depending on the part of the country - on the other hand it could be extortionate.....