Localism Act - changes to tenancy deposit rules-early April 2012

lighting_up_the_chalice

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Aren't deposits supposed to placed in one of the three approved schemes already?

This particularly change merely blocks the loop holes.

Much in the same way taxation legislation does when its introduced.

Indeed. But it doesn't apply to loopholes already used prior to them being closed.

tbs624

Just wanted to flag this up, for both Ts and LLs

Trollfever

Update:

Changes in the law come into force on 6 April 2012. You must protect all your tenants’ deposits by 6 May 2012, whether they are existing or new tenants within 60 days of a tenancy starting.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/deposit_protection

Asbestos2012

Hi there all

I hope you might be able to advise me as I am in a bit of a pickle.

The letting agent that I rent my house with havent bonded my deposit, my tenancy agreement is up on 2nd June, however there are some key facts that are very important in this case.

1) I started work with this letting agent and soon realised that not much was above board with them and they rarely return any deposits, by then I had already rented a house with them. They only started bonding any deposit 3 months ago.

2) When I initially rented a house through them as i was an employee I didnt have to pay my deposit in full. I am paying it in monthly installments on top of my rent. Rent is £575 pcm and i have one payment left in my 6mth AST. I have one payment of 87.50 left to pay.

3) when i handed my notice in to leave my job - everything was fine until I left. Once i had left the MD of the letting agent sent me an email telling me it would be best if i quit the house. I ignored this email. I am however just about to give 1mths notice and pay last rent and deposit payment.

4)What do I do now? I know I will never see my deposit again, infact I am still having major issues with the house which were unknown until a few months ago. The electric oven which was put in new when we moved in is not fixed into the housing unit as the gas pipe for the hob is to big and I was assured this would be sorted. There is no EPC and the electris are so out of date we were told by an independant electrician we called in not to even mow the lawn!

We couldnt even open the windows in the house as the keys had been lost, however my partner drilled all the locks after 3 months worth of emails to them to report this.

I would rather pay my last payments so I have not broken any laws, but what do I do about recovering my deposit? The rent and deposit were originally taken out of my wages at source and I have no receipts, except showing that my wages that went into my bank were reduced by that exact amount.

Please help, any advice given would be greatly appreciated.

princeofpounds

Hello Asbestos.

There is no reason why you should not be able to recover the deposit. If you are leaving I would just ignore the repair issues as it's secondary now you are moving on.

The Landlord is responsible for the return of the deposit. You need to write to ask for it to be protected in a scheme. If it is not done, then you need to write a letter before action threatening the landlord with a trip to court. That's the 3 second version, more details will follow I am sure.

PS you should create a new thread for your own issue. I will ask the moderator to do it.