Return of deposit - useless letting agent!

eightwayliz

Hi there,

The quick question is: how long after the end of a tenancy must the deposit be returned if undisputed, and is there anything I can do about the letting agent's uselessness or anyone I can report them to?!

I rented a house for 6 months and moved out at the end of the tenancy on 31st July. My landlord instructed the letting agent to return my £550 deposit on 1st August, and they emailed me to arrange it on 2nd August. However, as per their management of the property, it has been one great big farce. There was an unopenable attachment, and they didn't reply when I emailed to rectify this. Then when I re-sent that email 2 days later, I got an out of office auto reply saying the woman would be back in a week! Eventually on the 8th August I got through to someone on the phone who actioned the return of the deposit and said it would be in my account in 5 working days... but here we are on 17th August and still no sign of it. I thought they legally had to return it within 10 days?

I'm about to phone them again. This really is the last straw in a tenancy where I spent the first 5 weeks without a useable shower (that they promised to fix before I moved in). I could go on and on about how bad they were but life's too short!

Thanks in advance for any helpful replies,

Liz

BitterAndTwisted

Repair issues are the responsibility of the landlord so perhaps it was the LL who was unwilling to undertake that repair to the shower rather than the agents being useless.

If your tenancy began after April 2007 (which it patently did) by law your landlord should have registered it with one of the three tenancy deposit protections schemes.

WRITE to your ex-landlord with a copy to the letting agents giving them 14 days to return your deposit or you'll start court proceedings to recover it. Put your bank details on the letter to facilitate the return.

Mind_the_Gap

Which deposit scheme is your deposit being held in?

BitterAndTwisted

I suggest that you log onto all three deposit protection scheme's website and search for the property address to check whether it's been protected or not.

DPS
TDS
MyDeposits

eightwayliz

It's protected with MyDeposits. The landlord was great, the letting agent was useless, and it's the letting agent that are returning the deposit. I've no doubt that they will return my deposit sometime in the next week or two, the point is that they've been useless throughout and unless I do anything now they'll get away with failing to fulfil their legal obligation to return it in 10 days.

My concern isn't about not getting the money, it's that everything they've done has always been 'when they've got round to it' and it's not good enough!

Thanks again

BitterAndTwisted

Get onto the landlord. The agents are theirs, not yours and are supposed to be acting for and on behalf of the landlord. Keep pestering both of them until you get your money back. I'd be phoning, emailing and writing on a daily basis by now.

A good time to pop into the agent's office to "discuss" this would be on a Saturday morning when the office should be full of prospective buyers, sellers and tenants who may be interested in hearing of your experience......

eightwayliz

I've tried all that kind of stuff, it didn't really help - they're just fundamentally useless. Not in a mean way, they're just incompetent and it isn't going to change. Is there anywhere I can complain to, or any way of alerting others that they're so bad?

BitterAndTwisted

Complain to the landlord. That is the party who are responsible for the return of your deposit.

chappers

Just go and sit in their office and refuse to leave, thats what I did when trying to get my tenants deposit from an agent who contracted some tenants for me( last time I used an agent)

Yorkie1

If you don't want to go and sit in the office, then do as others have said and write again to the landlord and cc in the agents, giving them 5 working days to provide you with the deposit. Make sure you get a certificate of posting.

If you wanted to up the ante a little, you could head the letter 'letter before action' and state that if you don't receive the deposit within the stated timescale then you will have no option but to start court proceedings for its return.