Subletting Landlord refusing to return my deposit.

nadnerb_2

I moved into a house at the end of September. I was pretty desperate and pushed for time so I stupidly moved in without signing a lease/inventory with a woman who I initially thought owned the place. It turns out she is subletting.
I paid £250 deposit via bank transfer, plus a months all inclusive rent.

The whole thing seemed suss from the start, she was way too lax with the agreement, said she doesn't like contracts and just asks for 1 months notice if I move out.

Anyway, she turned out to be a complete nightmare to live with which is a whole other story. The place was a 4 bed house with her, another housemate and me. So the house included a spare room for guests. A couple of weeks after i moved in she said she was going to let the 4th room as she needed the money and began showing people around, yet she wouldn't lower our inclusive rent like you would expect (i.e. splitting rent/bills 4 ways instead of 3).
She also said she was moving to out of town for work so would be letting out her bedroom but would return on weekends to sleep on the couch....!!!

At this point I'd had enough and decided to move out. She said she was going overseas to make arrangements for a flat for her new job (yep, not just another town anymore, it's apparently overseas now!). Since she was leaving the country for 2 weeks I decided to not pay my months rent which was due a few days before she left, and instead stay the two weeks which would use up my £250 deposit. After about 5 days she of course noticed I hadn't paid so I told her im moving out and she agreed I could stay 2 weeks and she would keep my deposit. Perfect I thought!

Anyway, next thing I know she's txting me claiming i only paid £150 deposit therefore I owed her money and she was calling the Police to evict me! (hahahahaha) BTW, I have bank statements to prove it was £250.
I decided to just move out anyway as I'd had enough of her nonsense. I then txt her asking for the remainder of my deposit which was £50. (BTW, Im not too fussed about getting it back, I'd already written this off as a 'fee' to escape from the house/her without notice, and well worth it too!)

Her response was quite frankly, hilarious!
She said I'm not getting my deposit back because:

She claims I broke her freezer meaning all the food was lost and therefore I owe her money.
Completely untrue as I NEVER used the freezer. I opened it once and it was completely full and in desperate need of defrosting!

She also claimed my room was left in a state! Remember, she is still overseas when she sent this txt! Besides, before I moved in i gave it a really good clean because it was pretty filthy so I know for a fact it was cleaner when I moved out.

Finally, she claims I kept the key. Not sure why I would keep a key to a house infested with fleas (this is absolute fact, Ive never seen so many fleas!). but anyway, I left the key in the kitchen and told a housemate I had done so.

TL;DR
So, finally, to my question:

Should my deposit have been placed into a DPS?
She is subletting and living in the property which from what I've read, means she doesn't need to use DPS.
If this is indeed the case, any ideas on how I can get this part of my deposit back?

If you read all that, then thanks

Wee_Willy_Harris

Small claims maybe? But it's £50 and life's short enough already. Think of it as a very reasonable fee for a very good lesson in life and move on.

poppy10_2

It was not a legal let, and therefore she did not have an obligation to register your 'deposit'.
Do you have a contract?

jjlandlord

poppy10 wrote: »

It was not a legal let

And why is that?

Yorkie1

I assume she was living there and you all shared bathroom / cooking etc facilities?

If so, then you were a lodger and it was not a formal tenancy. Therefore the DPS / deposit protection rules do not apply.

How much money are you down? I couldn't quite follow from your post.

The only way to recover it will be to take her to the small claims court. It's relatively straightforward and you don't need a solicitor. But it's an immense amount of hassle, you'll need to take time off work and if she does end up out of the country it will be very difficult to enforce.

nadnerb_2

No contract, I didn't sign anything.

Wee Willy Harris, yeah it's only £50, I'm not fussed, but it's more about not letting her keep that money.
There's actually far more to this but I probably shouldn't post that here.
Lets just say I may have rumbled a nice little earner she had going, so I would quite like to teach her a lesson.

Wee_Willy_Harris

There's an old Chinese proverb, Confucius I believe. "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.".

nadnerb_2

lol, true.
But I don't have anything to lose, like I said I've written off the £50.

centretap

So are you saying she is renting the property as as tenant and then sub letting rooms to lodgers? If so does the landlord know what is going on?

If the landlord is in the dark it would only be fair to enlighten them

gorgeouslatinrose

Be glad to be out of there - and cat free

G_M

We do not know if she was subletting 'legally' or 'illegally'. We simply have no information about her status. Owner? (apparantly not). Tenant? (probobly - but not not all tenancies forbid sub-letting).

But none of that is relevant. Since the OP (nadnerb) was sharing property and facilities with his (sorry... her?) landlord, he/she was a LODGER. Tenancy deposit schemes only apply to .... tenancies.

Given the history I would have stayed long enough to use up the deposit amount (or stocked up for the future with loo paper!), however now?

Move on and forget the whole sorry episode. If Madlady sends you texts/letters/emails/etc just ignore. Madlady won't go as far as small claims court for the damage/key etc but if she did she'd lose.

How to get £50 back? Ask for it? :rotfl:

Sorry - seriously, you could take her to a small claims court but honestly quite apart from the cost (OK you can can claim costs) and the time, it is not worth the STRESS>