Petty deductions from deposit - what now?

tobedifferent

clutton wrote:

i know i am a landlady and therefore the scum of the earth as far as some are concerned - but has the OP gone mad !!!! suing for £20 ?????? for goodness sakes, what on earth is this all about, and dont tell me principle, its just plain old nonsense.

In this life we all get screwed by someone, or maybe even several someone's, along the way, but, what on earth is the point in spending time and effort on a really petty thing like this ?

move on, enjoy life, laugh about it, use it for an amusing after dinner party - but please - going to court for £20 ????? really - its a waste of time, energy, court time, public funds etc etc - write it off !!!

its nonsense like this that stops serious cases going to court when folks are hurt/injured/deliberately attacked - all that is at stake here is your pride !!!

sorry if this sounds curt, its just SUCH a silliness - it would be terribly funny if it was not so sad.

So If all tenants took £20 from you would it be a lot of silliness or add up to a serious issue? But that would not happen, because if they fail to pay you deduct it from the deposit......

Its not the amount it IS the principle. I wouldn't decide it was a funny dinner party story if I had £20 nicked from my bag, would you? A landlord stealing it from my deposit is no different.

whambamboo

clutton wrote:

i know i am a landlady and therefore the scum of the earth as far as some are concerned - but has the OP gone mad !!!! suing for £20 ?????? for goodness sakes, what on earth is this all about, and dont tell me principle, its just plain old nonsense.

In this life we all get screwed by someone, or maybe even several someone's, along the way, but, what on earth is the point in spending time and effort on a really petty thing like this ?

move on, enjoy life, laugh about it, use it for an amusing after dinner party - but please - going to court for £20 ????? really - its a waste of time, energy, court time, public funds etc etc - write it off !!!

its nonsense like this that stops serious cases going to court when folks are hurt/injured/deliberately attacked - all that is at stake here is your pride !!!

That's complete rubbish. Civil small claims are funded differently from criminal courts, so don't trot out the 'you're taking money away from rape victims/the downtrodden/cute little puppies' line.

Secondly, I'm pretty sure the £30 court fee would more than cover the cost of submitting a claim online and sending out letters. If the defendant wants to go to court before a judge (which *will* cost more than £30), it just proves they're even more petty and pathetic than appears more, and it's they that are wasting public funds, not the OP.

Thirdly, landlords that behave like this should be taught a lesson not to exploit tenants, so the OP is performing a useful public service.

Fourthly, there is no justice in society unless it can be enforced. Saying that you should ALWAYS just let £20 go means that we don't have justice in this country.

liz545

While I agree that bad landlords need to be taught a lesson, I'm with Clutton that £20 is too small an amount to sue over. We had similar deductions from the deposit of our first rental property, for equally petty reasons. You need to weigh up whether it's worth the months of worrying about it, and endless squabbling letters back and forth, or whether you should just let it go. We've just come to the end of a deposit case that was for over £1k, and it took months and resulted in a lot of lost sleep and stress. Personally I wouldn't bother with a claim for less than £100/10% of the deposit, as it just isn't worth the stress. It's all well and good to say 'just sue' but does the cost/benefit really stand up?

whambamboo

liz545 wrote:

While I agree that bad landlords need to be taught a lesson, I'm with Clutton that £20 is too small an amount to sue over. We had similar deductions from the deposit of our first rental property, for equally petty reasons. You need to weigh up whether it's worth the months of worrying about it, and endless squabbling letters back and forth, or whether you should just let it go. We've just come to the end of a deposit case that was for over £1k, and it took months and resulted in a lot of lost sleep and stress. Personally I wouldn't bother with a claim for less than £100/10% of the deposit, as it just isn't worth the stress. It's all well and good to say 'just sue' but does the cost/benefit really stand up?

I never bother with the months of letters.

A nice county court summons works wonders.

other

liz545 wrote:

While I agree that bad landlords need to be taught a lesson, I'm with Clutton that £20 is too small an amount to sue over. We had similar deductions from the deposit of our first rental property, for equally petty reasons. You need to weigh up whether it's worth the months of worrying about it, and endless squabbling letters back and forth, or whether you should just let it go. We've just come to the end of a deposit case that was for over £1k, and it took months and resulted in a lot of lost sleep and stress. Personally I wouldn't bother with a claim for less than £100/10% of the deposit, as it just isn't worth the stress. It's all well and good to say 'just sue' but does the cost/benefit really stand up?

You have stress and lack of sleep only because the amounts are great enough to worry about. The OP and many others in the same position are not bothered about the cash, but about the principle. Hence they are hardly likely to lose sleep over this matter, as they are not that worried if they win or lose, but are fighting it due to principles, and they already know they are right.

clutton_2

"they already know they are right"

with the greatest of respect we only have one side of the story here .......

if a principle is only worth £20 to you, then, my advice, in the kindest possible sense, would be "go out and get a life" - spend your energy on something more important !!!

jyonda

We just moved out of a rented house and the check out was mind bogglingly meticulous. In fact the clerk told me it was like an exam.
We cleaned the house very thouroughly but not to a 'professional standard' so we can expect a cleaning charge apparently. The curtains were a bit crinckled after washing (the original condition BTW) so maybe we'll get a deduction for that too. Every item of kitchenware had to be painstakingly replaced to it's original cupboard as most of it had been stored for several years as it was junk. I just don't see how this can really be worth paying an inventory clerk for their time to go into minute detail about a pin put into a door which was in a poor state anyway etc. Presumabley these people get paid by the hour.

Seeing as how the LL already had x months of an otherwise dream tenancy why not let the petty fees go and return the deposit in the good faith which it was given. No need to pay some busybody to go through everything with a fine tooth comb just go in and have a look around which is what the letting agent do once they get the 'report' anyway.

Yes you should sue. Once you get the receipt for the donation.
It's them being petty, not you.

mrsS_2

have to disagree with op here- if a pair of curtains are left neatly folded on a window sill for any length of time and not stored away, then at the very least they are going to be covered in dust (and so need cleaning) or at worst will have been bleached by the sun on the side that is upwards and so will need replacing.

or are you saying that you found them on the window sill, put them away and then got them out and put them back on the window sill when you left?

If they were left on a window sill for a year and got bleached you were lucky not to be billed for a new pair!

silvercar

Unbelievable! This thread has been viewed 263 times, how much time have we all been wasting over £20!

Moving home costs money. End of!

whambamboo

mrsS wrote:

have to disagree with op here- if a pair of curtains are left neatly folded on a window sill for any length of time and not stored away, then at the very least they are going to be covered in dust (and so need cleaning) or at worst will have been bleached by the sun on the side that is upwards and so will need replacing.

or are you saying that you found them on the window sill, put them away and then got them out and put them back on the window sill when you left?

If they were left on a window sill for a year and got bleached you were lucky not to be billed for a new pair!

If they were left on the window sill when they moved in, the tenant has no responsibility to store them.

Rather, the landlord should have hung them. If he couldn't be bothered to hang them as they should have been, he has no right to complain.