Landlord keeps stonewalling over deposit

lynzpower

next step is that the courts will contact you with a date. they will also let him know of what date he needs to appear.

Ive got a bank charges claim on the go at the mo, and i recieved a court notification for October, ( requested in April IIRC) so you could be waiting some months for a date ( or maybe they are pushing back the bank charges claims at the mo) just sit tight, the date will come.

Dont make any correspondence aside from in writing in the interim of course.

RHemmings

I'd say, get the deposit back first, and then dob him in for his little scams. And even if you get the deposit, dob him in. If he's shirking his responsibilities, the rest of us, one way or another, will be paying.

MrChips

Thanks Lynzpower, and all the others who are supporting us

I have to say the moneyclaim website was a bit clunky! Especially the box where you only have 1080 characters to sum up your claim - not easy when there are three people claiming! We had just edited down to this limit when we ticked the box asking if we wanted to claim interest - and hey presto it said we had to insert another 200 characters of text in the claim description box to claim the interest! So we had to spend another 10 minutes trying to edit out 200 more characters so we could squeeze it in!

Loretta

lynzpower wrote: »

next step is that the courts will contact you with a date. they will also let him know of what date he needs to appear.

lynzpower wrote: »

Ive got a bank charges claim on the go at the mo, and i recieved a court notification for October, ( requested in April IIRC) so you could be waiting some months for a date ( or maybe they are pushing back the bank charges claims at the mo) just sit tight, the date will come.

Dont make any correspondence aside from in writing in the interim of course.

This is actually incorrect, the court will send him details of your claim and he has so many days to reply either admitting that he owes the money, or that he has already paid it or that he is defending or making a counter claim.

If he doesn't answer within the time you go for judgment by default.

If he says he has paid your answer would be that you haven't received it and ask for proof, if he is defending he has to say why, if he is making a counter claim he has to give details.

You are quite a long way from appearing in court.

As he is obviously going to be one of those who does not accept recorded delivery letters I would continue to send them that way, just so that you have proof that he refuses them, deliver them personally and it would be good to take someone with you maybe take a photo with the date and time you put it in the letterbox, also as he seems to respond to emails, send these as you have proof. This may seem like a lot of trouble but it will help you in the long run when he starts to say he has not received your letters or the summons etc. look at eagerlearners post.

The main thing is to keep this moving, you have left it for several

months now you have started keep after him

Good Luck

MrChips

The plot thickens

After submitting the claim on Sunday evening, this email turns up today. Now I am no psychologist, but it does seem that the landlord is suddenly seeming a lot keener to be proactive in returning (at least one of) the deposits.

Hello Miss A,
Since you are concerned about Mr C, I can inform you that he did not leave a forwarding address when he left and has not returned my calls. On the 4th May 2007 I sent his deposit refund (less deductions) to his employer being XXXXXXXXXXX Co at 100 XXXXXXXX Street. This cheque and terminal account were returned to me by the Royal Mail just four days ago. When I spoke to the mail office at XXXXXXXX Co, they told me that Mr C's Contract was terminated on 27th April 2007 and that he was not employed by them when they received the letter. Royal Mail explain that they have a massive baglog of returned mail and this is the reason for the time it took them to return it. I was surprised that Mr C was with XXXXXXXXX Co for such a short time. You can inform him that I will now pay the money into his bank account but if he wants the breakdown he must give me an address to send it or an email address.
Regards,
Mr Landlord

I don't know what he means about not returning calls - Mr C has been texting the landlord EVERY DAY asking for his deposit back. And in the first letter we sent in early May (which the landlord signed for), we gave email addresses and bank details for all three agrieved housemates! Once again, the landlord's arguments don't seem to add up!

Anyway, hopefully the landlord is taking us more seriously now. We'll wait to see what he sends back to MrC and keep proceeding with the claim unless/until we get ALL the money back for all 3 applicants. After that we'll switch attention to getting the council and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs on his back

Loretta

keep this going, Landlord sounds a bit confused, keep everything in writing and go ahead tomorrow with the summons. I tried to do one online, nothing to do with rent deposits an entirely different matter, and after spending ages on it it all disappeared, and again the 2nd time so I gave up. I did it in person at the court office and they checked it over and were quite helpful.

If he has the flatmates bank details there is not reason for any delay in returning deposit, it soesn't matter where flatmate works etc this is just confusing the issue - delaying tactics. Decide for the next couple of weeks to make this your priority and keep it moving

I hate these silly amateur landlords who can't even remember whether they have returned the deposit!

Good luck

MrChips wrote: »

The plot thickens

After submitting the claim on Sunday evening, this email turns up today. Now I am no psychologist, but it does seem that the landlord is suddenly seeming a lot keener to be proactive in returning (at least one of) the deposits.

Hello Miss A,
Since you are concerned about Mr C, I can inform you that he did not leave a forwarding address when he left and has not returned my calls. On the 4th May 2007 I sent his deposit refund (less deductions) to his employer being XXXXXXXXXXX Co at 100 XXXXXXXX Street. This cheque and terminal account were returned to me by the Royal Mail just four days ago. When I spoke to the mail office at XXXXXXXX Co, they told me that Mr C's Contract was terminated on 27th April 2007 and that he was not employed by them when they received the letter. Royal Mail explain that they have a massive baglog of returned mail and this is the reason for the time it took them to return it. I was surprised that Mr C was with XXXXXXXXX Co for such a short time. You can inform him that I will now pay the money into his bank account but if he wants the breakdown he must give me an address to send it or an email address.
Regards,
Mr Landlord

I don't know what he means about not returning calls - Mr C has been texting the landlord EVERY DAY asking for his deposit back. And in the first letter we sent in early May (which the landlord signed for), we gave email addresses and bank details for all three agrieved housemates! Once again, the landlord's arguments don't seem to add up!

Anyway, hopefully the landlord is taking us more seriously now. We'll wait to see what he sends back to MrC and keep proceeding with the claim unless/until we get ALL the money back for all 3 applicants. After that we'll switch attention to getting the council and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs on his back

tomstickland

It really annoys me when slack landlords think they can make a bit more money by being akward about deposit returns. This landlord really needs to be more professional. If you do your preparation then going to court will make him appear to be the shoddy person he appears to be from this thread.

barvid

As someone who took a landlady to court for making ridiculous deductions from my deposit (in fact, she didn't return any of it), I can confirm that it's an easy and straightforward process. Stick to your guns, document EVERYTHING, remain calm and professional in correspondence and when your "big day" comes, and you'll be fine.

My hearing was actually unusual inasmuch as the landlady was invited to speak first, which is unusual given that she was the defendant, but she spouted a load of old rubbish. I had all my evidence (which had been submitted in advance, of course) to hand, and I could quote from letters that had been sent, and I appeared reasonable and calm, and the judge awarded me the entire amount. She paid up within a week.

MrChips

Thanks Barvid. When you stress to document "EVERYTHING", is there anything more subtle that we should be thinking of apart from the obvious? I guess if we were putting a file together now for submission, we would have

• Copy of tenancy agreement
• Copy of all correspondence sent to Landlord
• Copy of all emails received from landlord
• Photographs of clean rooms
• Statement of when landlord started and finished cleaning my girlfriend's room
• Mobile bill showing number of text messages sent to landlord in last few months as proof that he had means of contacting Mr C
• Statement of our knowledge that he hasn't been paying council tax (we'll check out whether it has been licensed as a HMO soon too).
• Record of dates and times of phone conversations with landlord when he was originally being chased for deposit.

Anything else we should consider? There was no inventory.

Maybe also anything we can get to show he was a bit of a dodgy landlord in general, i.e. something to show he would check out people's bedrooms while they were at work etc. And anything to show he broke his part of the tenancy agreement, eg he would show round prospective new tenants without any advance warning.

BrandNewDay

Everything you can gather would be helpful. Good luck!