Landlord not returning deposit

kiavvak

Hello,

I am posting on behalf of my boyfriend, who is having trouble getting his deposit back from his landlord, and I hoped you kind people might be able to give us some advice.

BF started renting a room in a 2-bed flat in March 2009, and recently moved out and handed the keys back at the beginning of February 2011. During the tenancy the landlord was very badly behaved - the property was in receivership for a long period, which caused him to be incredibly aggressive towards my boyfriend and his flatmate. The landlord persistently claimed that the property would return to his control imminently, and tried to persuade the tenants to pay him rent rather than the receivers. BF also requested the paperwork from the DPS (as promised in the contract) countless times, and all his requests were ignored - so, from our perspective this chap isn't particularly trustworthy! The property did finally come out of receivership shortly before the end of the tenancy, and the landlord starting being much more reasonable/polite. The flatmate that moved out most recently received his deposit back within 2 weeks, so it looked like everything would be ok, and BF felt there wasn't a need to withhold rent at the end of the tenancy.

Since moving out, BF has made numerous attempts to contact the Landlord by email and by phone (both his personal mobile, and at his work premises). He hasn't heard from the Landlord in over a month, and there is no sign of the deposit coming back. It's £1200, so it's not a sum BF really just wants to write off! We also discovered last week that the another previous tenant (moved out shortly after BF moved in) never received hers, so it's looking like we may need to go to court to recover it.

Could somebody give us some advice on how to proceed? We'd obviously like to avoid going to court if possible, but based on the landlord's previous behaviour I think it unlikely that this will be successful. The main questions we have right now are:

- How much should we expect to pay in court fees?
- Can BF and the previous flatmate make a joint claim, or should they be submitted separately?
- Will the landlord's business address suffice for filing the claim against? We have another address for him, but we know he doesn't live there.
- What will happen if the court orders him to pay, but he refuses/doesn't respond? Is there a way to force him to pay up?

Thank you very much for your help - we just really want to follow the right procedures to do our best to get the money back.

McKneff

You said the flatmate got his deposit back.

Why would he want to make a joint claim with your bf.

G_M

Since moving out, BF has made numerous attempts to contact the Landlord by email and by phone (both his personal mobile, and at his work premises).

Why do so many people do this? Stop emailing/phoning and start getting serious - WRITE! Create a paper trail.
Is this in Eng/Wales? If so, has bf checked with each of the 3 schemes to see if the deposit was protected?
If so, use the sceme's arbitration process.
If not, write reminding LL he'll be claiming 3 times the deposit for non-registrtion and demand the deposit back in 5 working days otherwise court procedings will start.
Then go to the Small Claims Court.

How much should we expect to pay in court fees?see here.
- Can BF and the previous flatmate make a joint claim, or should they be submitted separately? either if they were joint tenants
- Will the landlord's business address suffice for filing the claim against? We have another address for him, but we know he doesn't live there.use the address on the contract for the serving of notices
- What will happen if the court orders him to pay, but he refuses/doesn't respond? Is there a way to force him to pay up?yes, provided he has cash or property or income

kiavvak

McKneff wrote: »

You said the flatmate got his deposit back.

Why would he want to make a joint claim with your bf.

Sorry - I didn't make this bit very clear!

He had two different flatmates over the course of the tenancy - the first one didn't get her deposit back, whilst the second one did (though he moved out whilst the flat was still in receivership, which may have been a factor). A joint claim would obviously be with the first flatmate.

kiavvak

G_M wrote: »

Why do so many people do this? Stop emailing/phoning and start getting serious - WRITE! Create a paper trail.
Is this in Eng/Wales? If so, has bf checked with each of the 3 schemes to see if the deposit was protected?
If so, use the sceme's arbitration process.
If not, write reminding LL he'll be claiming 3 times the deposit for non-registrtion and demand the deposit back in 5 working days otherwise court procedings will start.
Then go to the Small Claims Court.

Yes, this is in England. We're pretty certain the deposit hasn't been protected, but you're right that it would be an idea to double check with the various schemes first. I shall investigate!

We'll get started with communicating by post then - I guess we only recently realised it was getting serious. (I presume this means we should send everything recorded delivery?)

Thanks for your help, G_M.

G_M

Trouble with recorded delivery is that if he's not in to sign, or chooses not to sign, it will be returned to sender. Just send it 1st clas.

When it comes to official notices (ie actual court papers, notice to quit etc), send two copies 1st class, each from a separate post office, and get 'proof of purchase' from the PO. No judg will beilieve that both got 'lost in the post'.

kiavvak

Thanks very much. We checked with the various agencies, and we're confident the deposit was not protected - this was also confirmed by the receivers when they were involved.

We've done a bit more research and now have a few more concerns/questions which we would appreciate some help with.

1. BF has realised that he has no formal receipt for the deposit. The tenancy was arranged privately (ie through Gumtree or similar, rather than an agent), so the deposit was paid to the landlord directly. We have lots of email correspondence discussing the deposit, but unfortunately never received confirmation from the LL that the deposit money was received. The contract does state the deposit amount, though this was never signed by the LL. The deposit was paid by direct bank transfer, so we can easily get confirmation/proof from the bank showing that the deposit amount was paid to the LL at the start of the tenancy. Will the combination of this, the contract, and correspondence from LL implying acceptance of contract be enough?

*If we get over this first hurdle* ...

2. By stating in the contract that the deposit would be protected and then not carrying this out, has the LL committed fraud? Is it worth pursuing this angle as well?

3. What would happen if LL returned deposit once court proceedings had begun, and once fees had been paid? Would we just lose this money, or would we be entitled to continue with the claim for compensation, even though the original deposit had been (belatedly) returned?

Thanks again for your help.

G_M

1) Bank transfer showing payment combined with emails and contract should be enough to prove deposit paid.

2) Contract stating deposit will be protected is irrelevant. This is required by law anyway - claim 3 times the deposit as penalty.

3) In your court claim, also put in a claim for costs. If the LL tries to settle before he case, insist he pays your costs as well as the deposit, else continue to court to reclaim your costs.

N79

kiavvak wrote: »

1. BF has realised that he has no formal receipt for the deposit. The tenancy was arranged privately (ie through Gumtree or similar, rather than an agent), so the deposit was paid to the landlord directly. We have lots of email correspondence discussing the deposit, but unfortunately never received confirmation from the LL that the deposit money was received. The contract does state the deposit amount, though this was never signed by the LL. The deposit was paid by direct bank transfer, so we can easily get confirmation/proof from the bank showing that the deposit amount was paid to the LL at the start of the tenancy. Will the combination of this, the contract, and correspondence from LL implying acceptance of contract be enough?

Almost certainly enough.

kiavvak wrote: »

*If we get over this first hurdle* ...

2. By stating in the contract that the deposit would be protected and then not carrying this out, has the LL committed fraud? Is it worth pursuing this angle as well?

You could mention it but this is really a separate issue. If you want to pursue deposit non protection then you can do so.

kiavvak wrote: »

3. What would happen if LL returned deposit once court proceedings had begun, and once fees had been paid? Would we just lose this money, or would we be entitled to continue with the claim for compensation, even though the original deposit had been (belatedly) returned?

Thanks again for your help.

Make sure that, if your LL makes and offer to settle that this amount is the original deposit plus fees you have paid to date plus fees that you will have to pay on canceling the court date (you will only get a part refund of the hearing fee if the hearing will be happening soon - how much you will get refunded depends on how long before the hearing your LL settles).

kiavvak

Awesome - glad to hear we might be ok even without a deposit receipt. I think we'll start sending off letters to LL today then!

Thanks to you both.

kiavvak

Ok - there's been a little bit of a development.

I called the LL myself this afternoon - he has not picked up calls from BF for weeks, so we thought it would be worth one more shot trying to get in touch with him to resolve it without court proceedings and to see where he stood. Maybe this was a bad idea...? I'd never spoken to him before, so we managed to have a reasonably polite conversation about the situation.

He admits ignoring attempts by BF to contact him, largely because he was aware that we were seeking legal advice, and he had decided not to respond anymore until he received papers from the solicitor (fair enough - although he stopped replying long before legal action was mentioned). He also said that he would be prepared to discuss the situation with BF to try and come to an agreement without going to court, which seemed like good news. However, he very much gave the impression that whether or not it goes to court, he intends to sting us for cleaning costs, which is the first time this has been mentioned. Firstly, this is totally unreasonable, as the flat was far cleaner when BF left than when he moved in - the flat had not been inspected since a year before BF moved in....! The keys were handed back to a 'friend' of the LL's, who took a glance over the flat, and made no complaint. This is hardly the point though. The key thing in our favour, from my point of view, is that there was no inventory at either the start or end of the tenancy. Has the LL any chance of claiming money against an unprotected deposit when there is no proof of the condition of the flat at the start of the tenancy?

LL has offered to speak to BF on the phone tomorrow, which we think might be worth going for, if only to find out what he plans to claim against us. Although If LL offers to return some of the deposit (but not all), and we refuse, we want to be confident that we can win the case by going to court. Will it look bad if we refuse a repayment offer by him if it's not the full deposit? It's all getting a bit scary as the LL runs his own company, and keeps referring to his "legal team". He says he's very happy to go to court with it, implying that he thinks he has some kind of case - what do people think about this? I hope he's just trying to scare us so we don't go down the legal route, but he's kinda succeeding at the moment...! Any advice on how to handle the phonecall tomorrow would be very helpful.