Deposit protectin soceity -refund issue from landlords prospective

marc3

recently made a tenants refund via Deposit Protection Service where deposit held.

Done a few with them with no issues-albeit previously actioned and instructed by fax.

This time did it on-line-and there was a small agreed landlords retention.

Both the retention (due to me) and tenants due refund,have been paid to the tenant !!

Having retraced my steps -frankly-it does appear that i made an on-line input error,so accept responsibility (albeit as the headline on site says tenant refund-i simply assumed i was dealing solely with tenant refund and 'our bit' was resolved later.

needless to say DPS singulalry unhelpful-pointing out my input error-(they are correct)

yes-i accept i am dumb and stupid-but having gone the procedure again-and seen where i made the error-i genuinely don't feel there instructions are quite as clear as they should be-and wonder if anybody else has made similar 'errors-or found difficulty when doing this 'on-line?

or am i uniquely stupid ?


Particularly annoying when it appears DPS clarified this with phone call to outgoing tenants -as they do-but did not subsequently ring us to say that is a bit odd to be refunding the agreed small retention to the tenants as well ;so i maintain DPS has a shared responsibility for the error.

(and i do realise i spelt society,protection and perspective wrong but can't edit the headline and that it is DP Service not society anyway -not fully awake yet !!! )

BitterAndTwisted

If you've processed other tenant deposits correctly in the past you have no-one to blame but yourself. Perhaps this might teach you to check what you're doing on-line more thoroughly in future. My feeling is that the observations you have made about yourself are probably correct.

Ulfar

While you will always get input mistakes, a well designed easy to use system will minimise this.

As a company the DPS should be open to feedback as if their service is awkward to use, Landlords will switch to using one of the alternatives if they are better.

theartfullodger

Assuming you are a letting agent I do not think you are uniquely stupid, far from it!

Cheers!!

silvercar

It was an error, ask tenant to send you a cheque. If they refuse you could go to court, if the amount is worth the hassle.

marc3

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

If you've processed other tenant deposits correctly in the past you have no-one to blame but yourself. Perhaps this might teach you to check what you're doing on-line more thoroughly in future. My feeling is that the observations you have made about yourself are probably correct.

Thank you for your kind words

marliepanda

silvercar wrote: »

It was an error, ask tenant to send you a cheque. If they refuse you could go to court, if the amount is worth the hassle.

I am pretty sure it would be difficult to hold up in court. They had the option of retaining that money, and then gave it all back.

A nice tenant who agreed that they were the cause of the damage might be nice and send you the cheque, but I doubt that it would be worth it to fight it in court. Chalk it up to experience I would say.

tbs624

Ulfar wrote: »

While you will always get input mistakes, a well designed easy to use system will minimise this.

As a company the DPS should be open to feedback as if their service is awkward to use, Landlords will switch to using one of the alternatives if they are better.

The fact that the DPS is fee-free to use suggests that many LLs will simply ensure that they pay attention to detail when entering online info

OP - as Silvercar suggests, you can try contacting the T and explaining that there has been an error.

However, if it's not a huge amount you may decide, on reflection, to let the matter go.