Landlord disposed of clothes by mistake!

alfiesmum

But then again would you leave three unmarked bin bags worth £127 each, out for when someone was coming round to collect rubbish from your house? Probably not. More than the landlord to blame it seems.

Nice one on the ebaying too! Great feeling when the paypal transfer lands in your account !. Keep it up.

societys_child

jamie11 wrote: »

Negligent or not, civil or criminal, as said earlier they were second hand and the landlord has offered £50, you could probably buy more than three bin bags full of second hand clothes with that, take the money and go on a shopping spree to your local charity shops.

Everyones clothes are second hand, obviously, but why on earth should someone have to replace their wardrobe with stuff from charity shops due to an incompetent LL?

pelirocco

Catherine_Johnson wrote: »

Why do people insist on jumping straight in with answers without knowing, or asking, the full facts?

The OP has made no mention of whether the tenant gave permission for the LL to go in. Without this knowledge it's impossible to say whether he/she should have been there. The INFERENCE from the post makes it sound like it was agreed between LL and tenant. But we don't know, so why comment on the LL being in the wrong?

Perhaps the tenant had agreed with LL to bag up the faulty items? Again, we don't know. This could explain why the LL removed the bags.

Maybe if the OP spent a bit more time writing exactly what the circumstances were then people could give a bit more thought to giving a sensible reply based on facts?

Everything else in the meantime is simply conjecture.

Only sensible post on here

little_miss_muppet_face

pelirocco wrote: »

Only sensible post on here

In your opinion maybe..

GDB2222

theartfullodger wrote: »

It's theft, criminal offence. Call Police, confirm complaint in writing to Police & get crime reference number.

Produce list of clothes & replacement costs, plus expenses.

Cheers!

Artful (landlord)

Really, Artful, I am left wondering whether what you said was tongue in cheek? Surely, you must know that it is complete wrong? For this to be a case of theft, there has to be a dishonest intent. That is the law, as otherwise you would be a criminal just for mistakenly picking up somebody else's hat and leaving your own.

There is no question of a dishonest intent, as the OP stated specifically that the landlord did this by mistake. So, it is a civil matter, not criminal.

The only point worth considering is the value of the clothes. Clearly, as second-hand items they had negligible resale value. However, I am not convinced that a court would look at it that way. Quite a lot of people do not like buying stuff from charity shops, so charity shop prices are not really a good indicator, either.

A better way of dealing with it would be to take the new price of the clothes reduced to allow for the period that the clothes were worn. The OP's daughter needs to produce a list of what was in the bags, with approximate purchase dates and prices. There is no need to produce receipts if these do not currently still exist.

It is difficult to believe that clothes that were bundled into black bags can have been regarded as very valuable by the OP's daughter.

As others have said, it really depends what the clothes were doing in the flat in black bags. If, as I rather suspect, the OP's daughter had left them there after moving out, it was negligent of her to leave them in black bags without marking them clearly. The landlord may well have come in to clear the flat out and thought these were rubbish. I am sure that a judge will take into account any contributory negligence on the daughter's part. In some circumstances, that might well amount to the best part of 100% contributory negligence.

GDB2222

societys_child wrote: »

Everyones clothes are second hand, obviously, but why on earth should someone have to replace their wardrobe with stuff from charity shops due to an incompetent LL?

on the other hand why should somebody get new clothes in place of second-hand ones? The normal way this is dealt with by insurance companies when there is a theft or fire is to take the new price reduced to allow for the period the clothes have been worn.

rentergirl

Was he supposed to collect and dispose of bin bags of anything? I suspect not. He will try and weazle out of this, so go to small claims court (it's easy). Before this, write a carefully worded letter before action, ask for a reasonable amount times 3, and go to court. You don't just chuck stuff out from another person's house without permission. You just don't.

G_M

Whilst acknowledging my original post was premature and (possibly) misleading, it now seems to me pointless to continue speculating on this thread till the OP comes back and fills in some of the unanswered questions/provides further details around the circumstances of this event.

zzzLazyDaisy

Was the tenant aware that the landlord was due to visit the house while she was out, for the purpose of removing rubbish? If so, I would say there is contributory negligence in her conduct in leaving bin bags around by the actual rubbish.

Having said that.... clothes are soft. Bin bags full of clothes do not resemble bags of broken appliances, so the LL should at least have been alerted to the fact that he was picking up something that wasn't previously arranged, and should have checked with her before disposing of the bags of clothes.

I suspect that we don't have full information here (not having a pop at OP, its just the nature of forums)

whitewing

Would the situation be covered by either the tenant's or LL's insurance? If so, that may be a fairer option for working out value, perhaps.