Commercial rent, letting agent wont give back deposit?

chrisronron

Hi there, new to this, but hoping someone can help us out!

We are having trouble with our Landlord / Letting agents for a previous property we ran a business from. We have since moved premises a few months ago but letting agents are refusing to return our deposit. Upon moving out, although overhauling the store and putting it back to a better standard, they demanded that we do a few jobs like fill some screw holes, and clean the floor again, which we went back and did. Upon meeting the estate agents back at the old property, we were informed the standard is not good enough and the repairs would be taken out of our deposit. the estate agent in question was also very abusive, stating that we dont have a leg to stand on, and being very insulting but I will not repeat what we were called!:mad:

A few things to note here are - The deposit paid was not paid by the estate agent into an account and is being held cash by them. There was no inventory carried out when we moved in and we have not signed anything. We just feel that even though we have spent so much refurbishing a store that was beyond repair when we moved in, they are not going to give our money back whatever we do!

Anyways I have since called the estate agents for a copy of the proposed work that needs to be carried out but was told 'It's none of your business!'. Am I correct in saying that the deposit is essentially my money? I have since called and have not been able to get hold of anyone.

So I was hoping someone may be able to help me out with a few things. Q1- Does the deposit need to be put into a protection service for commercial letting? Q2 - Does an inventory need to be carried out for commercial letting? Q3 - What would be your advice for us next?

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys!

Thanks in advance!

Chris

hostie1085

Hi Chris

I am in a similar situation with my landlord, myself and my partner rented a flat through a friend of a friend for 3 years, the landlord was a waste of space throughout the tenacy - no interest in repairs or maintenance etc... and since we have moved out she is refusing to give us our £600 deposit back on the grounds of marked walls where we've put pictures up and a faulty lock mechanism on the front door whoch has been faulty for a number of years.

Having taken some legal adice on this myslef i do know that as of April 2007 it is a legal requirment for all landloards entering into short-hold tenacy agreements to secure the deposit into a deposit protectiuon scheme or an insurance type scheme... the penalty for not doing this is a fine of upto 3x the value of the deposit which is payable to the tenant, you can also claim back your legal/court fees and any interest the deposit has incurred whilst in the landlords bank account. However i don't know if this rule applies to commercial lettings. Did you sign a contract or tenancy agreement at the start of your tenacny?
I found a lot of info on justice.gov.uk and also i made a few phonecalls to local solicitors as you are entitled to 20 mins free advice.
Also in your situation what i would do is contact a local commercial letting agent for some advice... they should be able to tell you how things are meant to be done properly.
The route i have been told to go down is to take her to court, i've been told to write a Letter Before Action basically giving her 28 days to return our deposit or we will be going to court - the decision i am facing now is have i got the time to go through all this!