Ex landlord sent my guarantor a rent arrears letter

BitterAndTwisted

It counts as handing the property back when you said you would. I wouldn't expect a court to agree to the landlord being able to charger two tenants for the same rental-period. Are you certain they re-let immediately after your departure?

I suspect these shysters are flying a kite. Just write your letters and see what they decide to do. Going to court isn't cheap and they may not bother. Solicitor's letters such as you have received have probably only cost them about twenty quid, I reckon

DVardysShadow

Sambles wrote: »

All it has that relates to this is a notice requiring possession after the 17th November 2009. It doesn't mention anything else. When I first got advice on moving out and sent scans of the contract off I was told it was a statutory periodic tenancy.

I don't think I can find the recorded delivery receipt for the notice letter, so I can't prove when they got it. This is the only point I can think they're able to contend.

If the landlords agent accepted my notice to move out on the 17/10/11, and they accepted the keys that day as well (they had viewings booked for 20 minutes after I was due to be out), does that not count as surrendering the tenancy also?

OK, I am not totally certain on this, you need to check it out - but it seems to me that if you were given a section 21 notice as part of the contract, you could not continue past the end of the fixed period on a contractual periodic tenancy, the continuation could only be on a Statutory Periodic tenancy. Perhaps others would comment on this?

It is somewhat complicated by a S21 notice being invalid if it is served before the deposit is protected - but even if it were invalid, the very fact that ot had been issued would probably nullify any clauses to govern a Contractual Periodic tenancy. I think.

Sambles

I sent a letter to the solicitor asking for a breakdown of costs, 4 days later my guarantor received a letter from the rental company, £280 of it is cleaning costs, the rest of the £699 is rent.

I don't see any way of disputing cleaning as that's in the contract and I no longer have the pictures, after 6 months I figured it was dealt with. Incidentally they took so long to do anything about it as they wait and send a batch through to the solicitors every so often.

I don't particularly see how I can get the landlord agency to actually acknowledge the legal advice I've had without a letter from a solicitors, which I would have to pay for now. They just repeat "2 months notice" with no explanation. I even included the advice letters I had originally.

I'm now looking at paying the cleaning costs over a period of months, but I refuse to pay rent when this is not owed. Is there a template letter/proposal I can use for this?

Even with cleaning costs, they charged £80 for clearing the garden when it was only the fence that had blown down in February 2011 that they had never bothered coming to repair: guessing I have no way of disputing this, or the amounts they've charged for each part?