Advice needed please - landlord considering deducting from deposit

laura_hoggle

Hello boys and girls,

A friend and I moved out of a house we were renting a couple of weeks ago. We had been there for two years. When we moved in, there was no inventory completed, even though we did request this. The letting agent said 'this landlady doesn't tend to do an inventory, which works well in your favour as they can't charge you for things at the end'.

When we moved in, the house was dirty, which as the agent showed me round, he did comment on. There was also a damp issue, which we told them about, that they claimed was condensation damp. We had to scrub the bath and oven, and clean the toilet before we moved in.

We didn't document any of this at the time, as we were both fairly new to renting privately. And we (stupidly) thought that as they hadn't done an inventory, we would be ok.

We moved out on September 21st, and spent several days cleaning the property - including cleaning the carpets, although I don't think the tenancy specified we had to do this. We cleaned the windows, and I took some skin off my fingers whilst cleaning the oven! It was in a MUCH better condition when we moved out, than it was when we moved in.

I have just contacted the agent to enquire as to when we will hear back about the deposit, as it has been over two weeks now. I completed our part of the DPS form, and have been waiting to hear from them. I received this reply:

'I received an email for the landlord last week mentioning that the property was extremely dirty and as such is considering deducting the cleaning bill from your deposit.'

Where do we stand with this? As there was no inventory completed, are they able to charge us? As far as we are concerned, the house was clean when we moved out. I did take photos when we moved out, although I have not yet told the agent this. Also, should they have told us of this before the new tenants moved in so we could rectify it? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

julieb1987

Look through the tenancy agreement. Mine states that the property has to be cleaned and left in a good state or they will deduct money for a professional clean from our deposit. If yours doesn't then I wouldn't worry. If it does then you need to speak to the LA and tell them that you have the photos and see what they say. As there was no inventory signed, you cannot be charged for any damage to anything.

G_M

Ignore the post above. The tenancy agreement is irrelevant.

You have to return the property at the end of the tenancy in the same condition (or better!) than it was at the start.

1) from what you say, you have clearly done this, so no deduction is justified
2) if no inventory, the LL cannot prove the property was professionally cleaned at the start, so cannot insist you do this at the end.

Without an inventory, the LL has noleg to stand on.

If you have photos from when you moved in, or copies of letters you sent at the time complaining about the condition, even better.

Raise a dispute via the deposit scheme.

julieb1987

That's interesting. So even though it's in my TA it's not relevant? I would never dream of leaving the house in a mess anyway and would always clean it...but didn't realise that about the TA (although it was effectively saying return as found as it was immaculate when we moved in...obviously general wear and tear is allowed).

G_M

julieb1987 wrote: »

That's interesting. So even though it's in my TA it's not relevant?.

Correct.

Even if the property was professionally cleaned before you moved in, and the inventory states that, AND the tenancy agreement says you must have it professionally cleaned at the end, you do not need to.

What you must do is leave it in the same condition. How you achieve this is up to you.

Clean it yourself to the same standard;
Get your mum round;
Pay a cleaner;
Whatever.

It is the final result that matters, not the process.

laura_hoggle

Thank you.

Sadly we didn't document anything when we moved in; we did not take any photos of the state of it, or write a letter to them. I now know we should have done this.

There are also inconsistencies between what the different people at the letting agent have said; I'm pretty sure my old housemate has an email to say that the letting agent would be doing an inspection when we moved out, and also that's what they said when I handed my keys in. Now it seems they didn't, and that the landlord (although as far I was concerned it is a woman who owns the property, who lives in Canada!) did.

I had a feeling the agents would be awkward with us when we moved out, as they were while we were trying to arrange viewings for potential new tenants.

They have not said for definite that they do plan to take money from the deposit, and I have asked them if there was anything in particular there was a problem with. If they come back and say, for example, the oven, I can then send them the photo I took as I was leaving the property to hand the keys in.

The thing that is worrying me is that neither of us can prove the state of the property when we moved in.

G_M

laura_hoggle wrote: »

The thing that is worrying me is that neither of us can prove the state of the property when we moved in.

Nor can the landlady!

But the deposit money is yours, so the onus of proof is on the landlady to show there is justification to make a deduction.

It is not for you to proof you are entitled to your money back.

picklepick

As your landlady had no inventory done when you moved in, she has no proof of the condition of the property at the start of the tenancy, therefore you have no worry.

Fire_Fox

Have you had anything in writing as to what the exact nature and amounts of the deductions are? If not they have left it too late to 'consider' anything, so raise a dispute with DPS which you should win easily. You should win anyway since they cannot prove you left the place dirty nor caused any damage.

laura_hoggle

After reading through my original post I have realised I made a mistake with my dates-we actually moved out and handed the keys in on 29th September (was getting confused with the date we took over our current property).

All they have said was 'I received an email for the landlord last week mentioning that the property was extremely dirty and as such is considering deducting the cleaning bill from your deposit.'

They have not mentioned a figure at all.

I replied with 'I find this very hard to believe, as we spent several days cleaning the property, including cleaning the carpets. Also, it was in a much worse condition when we moved into the property - there were still!items in the kitchen cupboards from the previous tenant, the oven was filthy and the!bath and toilet were covered in limescale, which took us some time to clean. There was also no itinerary completed at the start of our tenancy in 2010, to state the condition at the time,!even though we did request this.
!
Was there anything in particular that they were unhappy with? Perhaps if we had been informed of any issues sooner we could have rectified it prior to the new tenants moving in.' I have not had a response from this email.

I checked the photos last night, and they do state the time and date which they were taken. I showed them to a few colleagues, who commented on how shiny the kitchen worktop was, and that it wasnt dirty at all. As they haven't officially said that they plan on taking money from the deposit, and they haven't done any of their part of the DPS form, I don't know if I can get in tough with the DPS yet.

Part of me thinks that either they are confusing us with other tenants, or they are trying it on. I have tried to find out if they have a time limit to tell us if they plan on deducting money, but I can't seem to find one!

Kynthia

Have you raised a claim with the deposit scheme to request the return of your deposit yet?