Landlord keeps stonewalling over deposit

Loretta

You are doing well, keep it going

MrChips

Just got a message from Miss B who has returned from holiday to find that the landlord has left a long message on her voicemail.

Apparently he has said that the issues with Miss A and Mr C are sorted and they've got their money back (or will soon be in the case of Mr C). Presumably this is his definition of "money back", i.e. whatever he sees fit to give.

He also went on about this heater and how on more than one occasion Miss B left the heater on all day with the windows open. He now has this "big bill" which is "unreasonable". He was trying to insinuate he has proof that the electricity came from her room and that he's compared electricity bills and they are more this time!

I am actually beginning to enjoy this now. He has clearly received his court documents and is trying to negotiate/bully his way out of it

Not quite the behaviour of someone who recently wrote that he was "always happy to have his agreement tested in court".

I'll make sure we keep a record of the call, and that no response is made by phone, only in writing, if indeed any response is even appropriate.

liz545

MrChips wrote: »

I am actually beginning to enjoy this now. He has clearly received his court documents and is trying to negotiate/bully his way out of it

Not quite the behaviour of someone who recently wrote that he was "always happy to have his agreement tested in court".

I'll make sure we keep a record of the call, and that no response is made by phone, only in writing, if indeed any response is even appropriate.

I'd personally just ignore it - short of actually sending you a cheque for an amount that you think's reasonable, I wouldn't respond to anything he says. Just let him stew- he deserves it!

BrandNewDay

I'd utterly ignore him. Let the judge sort it all out. If he says something in a message that makes you think, "Hmmm... I might need to refute that" then go over your documentation to see that you have it covered. Or, maybe make a list of stupid things he's said and your refutations to them so you can refer to it when in front of the judge.

The guy sounds like he's all over the place and doesn't have a strong argument. If he hasn't communicated things in writing, the judge is probably going to just consider him an idiot.

Be sure to have everything in very neat order - perhaps in page protectors in a binder with a table of contents so that you can quickly find anything tha comes up. This will contrast nicely with the landlord's scattershot idiocy and the judge will think well of you.

olly300

The only appropriate response for someone like that is to ignore the first call, and if there is another one to warn them in writing that any more harassing phone calls will be recorded and reported to the court.

BTW the judge won't do anything but tell the culprit off making that person look more foolish.

Loretta

MrChips wrote: »

Just got a message from Miss B who has returned from holiday to find that the landlord has left a long message on her voicemail.

Apparently he has said that the issues with Miss A and Mr C are sorted and they've got their money back (or will soon be in the case of Mr C). Presumably this is his definition of "money back", i.e. whatever he sees fit to give.

He also went on about this heater and how on more than one occasion Miss B left the heater on all day with the windows open. He now has this "big bill" which is "unreasonable". He was trying to insinuate he has proof that the electricity came from her room and that he's compared electricity bills and they are more this time!

I am actually beginning to enjoy this now. He has clearly received his court documents and is trying to negotiate/bully his way out of it

Not quite the behaviour of someone who recently wrote that he was "always happy to have his agreement tested in court".

I'll make sure we keep a record of the call, and that no response is made by phone, only in writing, if indeed any response is even appropriate.

Not quite the behaviour of someone who recently wrote that he was "always happy to have his agreement tested in court".

You'd better make him happy then!!

MrChips

After a relative lull in proceedings, things are moving again!

We recently received back the forms from the court, indicating that the landlord is defending the claim. His defence statement is as follows:

"deposits returned to two claimants prior to the claim but 3rd had been using an electric heater in her room without authorisation this is against terms of her agreement and heater was left on even with room unoccupied and windows open. I have an electricity bill for over £800 for premises which is far in excess of normal"

The lack of punctuation is his, not mine!

In the last couple of weeks, one of the flatmates has (we think*) had his full deposit returned (so not returned prior to the claim), while my girlfriend is still waiting either for the rest of her money or an adequate explanation of why he hasn't repaid more of it. The 3rd girl still has had precisely zero. He has not expressed over what period the £800 is for, nor how it compares with "normal". The previous winter there were only three occupants in the house so the bill would be expected to be lower. He still doesn't explain how he knows about this suposed heater being on all this time, nor how he can be sure the "excess" is all down to this one girl. The girl admits she did use a heater in the winter but definitely didn't leave it on during the day nor open her window (it was cold outside!!) only because her radiator wasn't working - when the landlord eventually fixed it (it needed bleeding) she stopped using the heater (which by the way she inherited from the previous occupant who never had any run in with the landlord over this issue!).

We had a meeting last night to discuss next steps and the following questions were rasied:

• The claim seems to be officially all in the name of the 3rd girl (who has had no deposit returned due to the heating issue) as the online application didn't have room to name more than one claimant. However we tried to make it clear elsewhere on the application that it was in fact three people who were claiming. Will this cause any administrative issues? The form we now have to fill in asks how many witnesses we will call, and we aren't sure whether the two extra claimants should be listed technically as witnesses or not.
• The form suggests we try to mitigate in advance of taking it to court. We are reluctant to do this as we have waited so long, and because we know what the landlord is like. Will it work against us if we choose to ignore this option?
• We are encouraged to fill in a box listing details which will assist the judge in his decision, although it does say we don't have to disclose everything we intend to use at this point. Should we just disclose a minimum now, or give as much as possible? Our current idea is to present copies of the correspondence we have sent him and any email chains between him and us. This should give our point of view without giving the landlord access to anything earlier than we have to.
• Does anyone have a rough idea of the timescale from here to a potential court date? Are we talking weeks or months?
• As part of our preparation, we are thinking of making a list of all the occasions the landlord behaved less than professionally (eg snooping in people's rooms without permission, not repairing the house promptly, showing prospective tennants round without warning, not paying bills so internet connection was frequently cut off, an occasion when a bailiff arrived at the house for him). We aren't necessarily going to disclose it as "evidence" but we thought it would be useful to have up our sleeve, first as backup in case he starts mudslinging (which we think he will) and second just to help paint the scene of what he is like. Obviously in certain cases it will just be our word against his - if we don't have any evidence is there any point even bringing it up?
• Following our discovery that he hasn't been paying council tax, is there some way we can find out if he pays the TV license and if the house is licensed as a "house of multiple occupation"? It would be good to have something in writing about this but at the moment, the only evidence I have that he doesn't pay council tax is a conversation with the coucil on the phone and I don't think I would be able to get something in writing due to data protection (I had to be very cunning just to get them to admit he hasn't been paying over the phone!).
• In the worst case scenario that the judge somehow rules against us, would we still be eligible to a refund of the court fee from the landlord, seeing as the reason we brought the claim was that he wasn't communicating with us for months after moving out - we have only got some more money and information about why he isn't paying up since we filed the claim.

An extra bit of evidence I discovered we had last night (which made me really laugh) is that the 3rd girl actually has a reference from the landlord saying what a model tenant she is - he gave it to her when she left to move into her current residence! If he knew all along about this suposed heater issue and her leaving it burning day and night with open windows, he would hardly have written that!

Thanks for all the help so far - it really is very useful

* this flatmate was supposed to leave a £600 deposit according to the tenancy agreement but only got round to paying £250 and the landlord never chased for the rest - however there is no paperwork to confirm this. We aren't sure if the landlord has forgotten that he never paid the full amount and refunded £600 less deductions or given him the full £250 back. If the latter, then that also helps our case as there can be no reason why he has charge my girlfriend for council tax and not him! This housemate is going to email the landlord asking for a receipt/breakdown of the £250.

olly300

Answers to some of your questions not in order:

Phone up the court dealing with your claim, give them the case
number and explain that there are 3 claimants on your case not one.

When I've started court action over deposits I've never mitigated or gone through mediation as I have written records showing previous interaction with the person showing they are not reasonable. If they were reasonable then you wouldn't have needed to go to court. You have the email communication to prove this so print it all out and put it in your file.

Don't bring up stuff you don't have evidence for it just results in a slanging match, and makes you look unreasonable as it doesn't have anything to do with your claim. Your claim is about not getting the deposit back and his defence is you ran up bills.

BTW has the landlord shown you the bills from this year and last year? Also did the landlord take into account the price rises for electricity and gas over the year. (If he hasn't, mention it in court that there are no bills and the price of gas/electricity increased over the year but don't say anything to him before the court date otherwise he will put a copy of the bills in his files as evidence.)

Contact the councils' private housing officer or envirnomental health department (google them, then ring them up). Ask them verbally if your house should be a registered house in multiple occupation i.e. describe number of floors and relationships of the occupants. If they say "yes". Write a letter to them asking the same question using another claimants name. They have to give you a written reply. Then put this in your file.

With tv licensing if all the occupants had separate rental agreements then they each were liable to get their own tv license so don't mention it.

The case will probably take months and you won't get your fee back if you lose. However judges are experienced and can see bu!!s!!!ers so make sure you put the reference he gave about the 3rd claimant in your files to take to court. This will look great when he starts mudslinging as all you need to point out repeatedly is if xxx was a problem why did he give her that reference.

coal9011

"Excellent" reply olly300! ........spot-on! :T

(although be prepared for the LL to bring up the issue of TV licenses should he think of it)

BrandNewDay

I was just thinking yesterday "I wonder how Mr. Chips is getting on?" Thanks for updating us... I'm nearly as impatient as you are to hear how it all ends.