Joint landlords are divorcing - how to proceed with dispute?!

sooty86

Our landlord is refusing to return our deposit. We have sent letters and gone down the usual routes (contacting the tenancy deposit schemes - with which it turns out he didn't register our deposit with, surprise surprise) etc. and still no joy. We are resigned to taking him to the small claims court.

Now so far I have referred only to 'him' and 'landlord' - in fact, our contract lists mr and mrs X, who are now in the process of getting a divorce. We have addressed all correspondence to both of them.

I had a phonecall from mrs X, who was pleasant (it has always been him who we've had problems with), asking if we will accept half of the money from her if we continue to only pursue the matter with him.

Legally, where do we stand on this one?

Any help would be much appreciated!

G_M

No. Legally they are a single entity so you should sue both jointly. By all means accept half the money, provided it is clearly stated in writing that this is PARTIAL settlement only, but if the other half refuses to pay, sue them both jointly. As the wife has been friendly, explain why you are doing this. As a joint LL she is responsible for the entire deposit - her marital dispute is not your problem.

PasturesNew

She can't pay you half and forget it. The whole debt belongs to them together - and individually. You are owed the whole amount - and you don't care who from. That's their problem.

Hold out for the whole amount, don't cut deals. She'd pay her half, but then you'd be stuck with Mr 4rsewipe not ever paying his half and it'd become impossible as your only way forward would be then to sue her for the other half ...

Not your problem. They owe - they pay.

pinkshoes

Their divorce is not your problem. Send them a recorded delivery letter saying that as they failed in their legal duty to protect your deposit with one of the three government schemes (did you check all three?), then unless they return your FULL deposit in the next 14 days from receipt of this letter, you will be taking them to court for three times the deposit value, as is your legal entitlement due to their failure to protect it.

Hopefully that should work, and if it doesn't, the small claims court is quite a simple procedure.

sooty86

Thanks guys

pinkshoes - yep we checked all three deposit schemes. We're annoyed with ourselves for not checking it was protected in the first place - a little bit of naievty on our part. They have been sent a letter almost exactly as you described, but I wasn't aware that we could claim for three times the deposit amount - gives it a bit more clout!

BitterAndTwisted

The three times deposit as penalty is not guaranteed but one hopes your landlords will be unaware of that.