Small claims help

a1meewillygogs

hello

ok so moved out of our privately rented home in june we moved in 2003.

After uping the rent this year we told her we may have a look at our options, she said that was ok she may look into student lets if we moved. a few days later she brings a letting agent round, then wanted to show new tenants around. we told her no as we hadnt given notice or said we were leaving. 2 days later we get a notice to quit from her giving us two months.

we find somewhere else, give her 4 weeks notice as stated in our contract. and allow her to bring new tenants around. we left her a fridge freezer,curtains,blinds, lampshades (We asked if she wanted them leaving first, wish we hadnt now!) and cleaned the house from top to bottom. We asked her to meet us to collect the keys and check the property, she ignores our emails (her prefered method of communication) so we get in touch with her daughter (who she calls her agent??) who said just post the keys.we took photos before we left.

we then dont hear from them.... after chasing them up we get an email from her daughter. this email is from our landlady addressed to her daughter forwarded to us.

she states that we have left it in a lovely clean state but..... the house needs re-decorating, the garden needs doing, we owe her rent as we didnt leave on her notice to quit date.

lots of letters have gone back and forth now, her changing stories, contridicting herself and falsely accusing us of things. also what we believe are fake quotes.

i have now started a small claims, she has filed a defense and counter claim stating:

we actually owe her money on top of the deposit.

1) breech of contract,the house has been decorated and needs returning to white £670 - it was never all white to begin with. No check in inventory was done. she never decorated in the 9 years we lived there. we also cant find anything on our contract to do with decor, we have asked her to send us a copy of a signed contract stating this as our copy doesnt say a thing. she has given us a quote for £670 this is for the whole house to be decorated, we only decorated the chimney breasts!!

2) garden left in a mess £250- we left it in a good state, we had recently rebarked the yard at our own cost which she was aware of, there is a fenced off part at the end of the garden with bricks in, this was there when we moved in, we never touched it as it was fenced off. in her letters she says we are liable. the quote from the gardener is also questionable as when we look him up he comes up as a therapist, which is also her day job, ive called him to ask for information on the quote and he says hes busy and will call me back however he never does.

3) £35- to rehang lounge door- we are at fault here, we took it off to remove furniture and totally forgot to put it back on. however we offered to do this twice and received no answer.

on top of this she is charging £110 administrion fees?? not sure why.

£35 the cost of her counter claim.

she has claimed she cant show people around because of the state its in, she showed new tenants around whilst we were still there and new tenants moved in 3 days after us luckily two different sets of neighbours will confirm this for us.

my question is how am i best to defend this claim.

she also in the 9 years we lived there only had the boiler checked twice. i have reported this to the HSE but should i bring this up in court??

sorry for my rant!!

BitterAndTwisted

a1meewillygogs wrote: »

We get an email from her daughter. this email is from our landlady addressed to her daughter forwarded to us.

she states that we have left it in a lovely clean state but..... the house needs re-decorating, the garden needs doing, we owe her rent as we didn't leave on her notice to quit date.

You didn't have to leave on the expiry of her Section 21 Notice. As long as you are absolutely certain that in return you gave one rental-period's notice coinciding with the "from" and "to" dates on your original tenancy agreement. Do you have a copy of that to refer to and by what method did you give your one month notice and could you prove it to the court?

lots of letters have gone back and forth now, her changing stories, contradicting herself and falsely accusing us of things. also what we believe are fake quotes.

i have now started a small claims, she has filed a defense and counter claim stating:

we actually owe her money on top of the deposit.

1) breech of contract, the house has been decorated and needs returning to white £670 - it was never all white to begin with. No check in inventory was done. she never decorated in the 9 years we lived there. we also cant find anything on our contract to do with decor, we have asked her to send us a copy of a signed contract stating this as our copy doesn't say a thing. she has given us a quote for £670 this is for the whole house to be decorated, we only decorated the chimney breasts!!

NO CHECK-IN INVENTORY WAS DONE: therefore she has no documentary evidence of any damage she is claiming for. Any landlord who expects not to have to decorate after nine years of continuous tenancy is living in a dream-world.

2) garden left in a mess £250- we left it in a good state, we had recently rebarked the yard at our own cost which she was aware of, there is a fenced off part at the end of the garden with bricks in, this was there when we moved in, we never touched it as it was fenced off. In her letters she says we are liable. the quote from the gardener is also questionable as when we look him up he comes up as a therapist, which is also her day job, ive called him to ask for information on the quote and he says hes busy and will call me back however he never does.

NO CHECK-IN INVENTORY WAS DONE

3) £35- to rehang lounge door- we are at fault here, we took it off to remove furniture and totally forgot to put it back on. however we offered to do this twice and received no answer.

Then accept responsibility for it and agree to pay it in full.

on top of this she is charging £110 administration fees?? not sure why.

Dispute it.

£35 the cost of her counter claim.

she has claimed she cant show people around because of the state its in, she showed new tenants around whilst we were still there and new tenants moved in 3 days after us luckily two different sets of neighbours will confirm this for us.

my question is how am i best to defend this claim.

she also in the 9 years we lived there only had the boiler checked twice. i have reported this to the HSE but should I bring this up in court??

It's not a statutory requirement for boiler-checks to be done but an annual gas-safety check does and the tenant should be provided with a copy of the Gas-Safe engineer's certtficate. But none of that is relevant now.

Strapped

I hope you hang her out to dry. With no check-in inventory she hasn't a leg to stand on.

Fire_Fox

Defend it much as you have here: neat paragraphs/ bullet points, give dates for everything you can, quote the tenancy agreement, reference the legislation, screen shot showing what the 'gardener' and the owner both do for a living, any other evidence quotes or invoices are fake, statements from both neighbours.

Agree to pay for the door, IMO don't muddy the waters by saying you painted the chimney breasts. The issue is there is no check in inventory, I highly doubt she got it repainted in three days (she needs invoices if so, not just quotes), you have photos of it being in good condition considering it had not been painted in nine years and would have needed a full redecoration anyway.

You don't owe rent if she let the place within three days because she is not out of pocket; maybe that three days IF you didn't give four weeks notice coinciding with the dates on your tenancy agreement.

unclebulgaria

Ive just been to small claims chasing an outstanding debt from a landlord for work on their property.
Can't add anymore that B&T other than the golden rule which is; you have started the claim and as Claimant it is your responsibility to produce all of the evidence to pursue your claim. Do't leave any stones unturned and produce as much evidence as you can, keep all paper evidence and emails inc texts and produce them all. She and you have a legal responsibility to mitigate all of your losses, meaning don't incur costs that were unneccessary or you wont get them back. Get as much evidence as you can and ask a solicitor specialising in tenacy law for some free advice.
Do as much reading up on small claims as you can.
Keep us informed?

suited-aces

Can you get a neighbour to testify in writing the fact that she showed people around and has re-let it? The judge may not take kindly to being lied to.

a1meewillygogs

Thankyou for all your help, yes i have two different neighbours who have written statements for us saying the new tenants moved in within a few days of us moving out.

Not sure if i can use this against my landlady or not but we were aware that she was going to let it to her sons friends, after talking to a neighbour i found out it was her son and two of his friends. I had a nosey on facebook to see if i could find her son and low and behold i find him and a picture of our old garden and you can clearly see the fencing and bricks have been removed which is what she wants to charge us for. This picture was posted on the 6th august, i have a letter from her also dated the 6th of august that claims she has got quotes but no work has been done yet.

Not sure if i can use this?? I know its a little sneaky and naughty of me but i want to get as much as possible against her!

Yorkie1

You already have a reply to your last post on the separate, duplicate, thread you subsequently posted.