Landlord deposit dispute - betterment?

Aengil

tbs624 wrote: »

OP - check with the other 2 schemes (DPS and mydeposits) IIRC TDS booted out LAs who refused to sign up to ARLA or another body with a code of conduct.

Thanks. It turns out it's now with mydeposits (at least, mydeposits' checker says it is) instead of TDS. We were never notified of that, and we don't have a copy of the deposit protection certificate.

tbs624 wrote: »

Send the LA/LL a Letter Before Action, setting out your attenpts as resolve and asking them to return your deposit with 10 working days, after which time you will proceed to the County Court to seek recovery. State in the letter that you have evidence from each of the three schemes that you tenancy deposit is no longer registered.

Since it turns out it is with mydeposits, I guess that no longer applies. I can't open a dispute with mydeposits without the deposit protection number though (at least, not online). Will I be able to get that number direct from mydeposits or will I need to get this from the LA?

Also, reviewing what I've received from the LA, I've noticed the letter claiming costs refers to a check out report supposedly forwarded to us on 16th June. That has mysteriously never showed up. Hmm!

I'm inclined to write to the LA, withdrawing that goodwill offer I made previously as several of you have advised, and requesting that the check out report and the certificate of deposit protection are sent to us soonest (should I set a deadline?). I imagine it will be easier to dispute if I can see exactly what they've put in the check out report (I went round the house with them, and they raised absolutely nothing at the time).

Thanks again everyone.

dancingfairy

As a further thought surely they can only retain the 400 pounds (or whatever it was they claimed it cost for cleaning) at the moment while the dispute is sorted out - surely they have to give you the rest now anyway?
df

Aengil

So, I have a bit of an update on this. I've finally been provided with a copy of the check-out report, and a cleaner's quote. Still no certificate of deposit protection though. Anyway:

The only comment on the garden is to the effect that the grass has been cut, and that while the borders need tending it's noted on the inventory that they hadn't been done at the start of the tenancy. So I don't think there's any problem disputing any charges on that front (and I'm a bit appalled that they even tried to charge us for gardening given that).

But the cleaning is rather more dubious. Almost every individual item on the inventory has a tick by it in the check-out column, so that's good, but it goes downhill from there. The half a dozen items that do have comments are things like a carpet listed on the inventory at check-in as 'Cream carpet - in heavy stained condition' with 'in need of a prof clean' written in the check-out column, and similarly a carpet described at check-in as 'Cream carpet - a large number of stains' having the comment 'carpet heavily stained' made on check-out. But then, at the bottom of each page, they've put comments like 'Hallway including carpet in need of deep clean.' and on the ground floor they've added comments like 'strong odour throughout'.

Then attached there's a two page 'end of tenancy report', where every item is checked off apart from the oven which they claim was 'in need of a prof clean' but then in a summary box they've put that the property was in need of a deep clean throughout, dirt-engrained carpets needed to be professionally cleaned, and that the property has now been cleaned by two professional cleaners who worked for 17 hours each (!). Then there's a page of notes, where they've just written 'dirty - strong odour' by the ground floor rooms and 'in need of deep clean' on everything else.

Finally, there's a cleaner's quote dated 4/7/2011 (i.e. yesterday) which just lists each room with 'wipe down and clean carpets' (or similar) next to it and the total.

My problem is I don't know where to start with all that. It looks to me that they've just attempted to justify a cleaning bill by simply putting in claims of strong odours and, well, basically that the entire house needed deep cleaning (I mean, they've gone so overboard that they even claimed that the bathroom - a room we barely used (we used the shower in another room) and that we thoroughly cleaned before we left anyway - was 'in need of deep clean'!).

Obviously I want to dispute that. But how do I go about it? I can't prove there wasn't an odour for example! And even on the carpets, that should be simple (they weren't clean when we moved in), but there's a statement on the Inventory that says 'in the absence of comments, a listed item is free from obvious defects, damage or soiling, and will be considered to be in good, clean condition'. Can they take that and argue that a carpet described as 'heavily stained' was therefore stained, but otherwise clean, when we moved in?

This is really driving me up the wall.

BitterAndTwisted

Do nothing until you've had the certificate of deposit-protection. Phone up MyDeposits and find out what happens if the landlord or their agent will not supply it to you.

I would use the tactic that the carpets are no dirtier on check-out than they were at the start of your tenancy. There is no difference between "a large number of stains"and "heavily stained": they are both in need of a deep-clean but that may not even solve the problem in any case which is not your problem. You need to dispute every deduction and leave it to the landlord or agent to prove their position to the scheme's arbitrators.

Aengil

So just over three and a half months later I've been through the entire dispute process with mixed results.

On the plus side, I did get just over half, £200, of their claim back. That's better than nothing.

On the minus side, while the landlord/letting agent got nothing for gardening costs, they did get £120 for cleaning (half their claim) and £50 for an 'administration fee'.

The adjudicator seemed to confuse a couple of key points (confusing 'two upstairs carpets were cleaned' with 'the carpets were cleaned'), and also seemed to accept a couple of the landlord/letting agents claims on face value (along with claiming that the carpets were cleaned and that there was an odour, they also claimed that issues of cleanliness had been raised at a mid-term inspection which is emphatically not true), despite our prior statements that this was not the case. The adjudicator then rather arbitrarily awarded them half their claim for cleaning.

Essentially the landlord/agent got £170 for saying, "There was an odour, honest, guv."

As I understand it, while I am naturally still rather annoyed about this, there is no form of appeal and that's that. Frustrating.

So while I would recommend anyone in a similar situation does go through the process regardless, I think it's fundamentally flawed in that the tenant has to start the dispute process by justifying why they should get their money back, with the landlord/agent then able to see and respond to that, but without the tenant being able to respond to, or even see, the landlord's claims. That's backwards. It's the tenant's money, the landlord should be the one having to justify why a deduction should be made with the tenant being able to counter that, not the other way around.

I would also recommend that as things stand, it's probably worth having a professional give the property a quick clean, or otherwise having someone independent verify the condition of the house at the end of the tenancy, since without a third party statement claims of odour come down to their word against yours and it would appear that is unfortunately sufficient for an adjudicator to take away part of your deposit.

BitterAndTwisted

If you are completely confident that the adjudicators were too heavily weighted in the LL/agent's favour you still have recourse to the courts. It all depends on whether you have the evidence, the time and the energy to go through with it. For the sake of £170 I probably wouldn't bother but you could.

Aengil

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

If you are completely confident that the adjudicators were too heavily weighted in the LL/agent's favour you still have recourse to the courts. It all depends on whether you have the evidence, the time and the energy to go through with it. For the sake of £170 I probably wouldn't bother but you could.

Thanks for that. It's an interesting option, but I don't think I'd bother for £170 either. The only reason I'd consider it is the principle - as far as I can see, in a market where demand outstrips supply there is no reason for a landlord/agent not to try it on, and it irks me to see them getting away with it to any extent. But I probably have better/more worthwhile things to do with the time (I'd like to think so anyway).