No inventory at check-in

BitterAndTwisted

Yes, regardless as to who you physically paid the money over to, the final responsibility for the deposit and any other issues always rests with the landlord. So that's who you address your query to.

Stujclark

Agree, send letters to the agent AND landlord. The landlords names and address should be on the tenancy agreement. Give them 14 days to reply.

There are no excuses, and I mean NO EXCUSES for a landlord not protecting a deposit, point out to them that not only will they be forced to return/protect the deposit, but a fine of 3 times that deposit will be levied by a court.

Yorkie1

Stujclark wrote: »

Agree, send letters to the agent AND landlord. The landlords names and address should be on the tenancy agreement. Give them 14 days to reply.

There are no excuses, and I mean NO EXCUSES for a landlord not protecting a deposit, point out to them that not only will they be forced to return/protect the deposit, but a fine of 3 times that deposit will be levied by a court.

The last bit of this post is not quite accurate.

The court may issue a penalty of between 1-3 times the deposit.

There has been some discussion on here as to whether court action for this by the tenant would take it out of the small claims track, thus exposing the tenant to higher initial court fees and risk of greater costs liabilities.

tbs624

Stujclark wrote: »

Agree, send letters to the agent AND landlord. The landlords names and address should be on the tenancy agreement.

For the purposes of s48 LL&TA1987 the LL may use the LA's address

Stujclark wrote: »

There are no excuses, and I mean NO EXCUSES for a landlord not protecting a deposit,

Totally agree - it's 7 years since the regs were first brought in and there was much publicity about the changes brought in last year by the Localism Act

Stujclark wrote: »

point out to them that not only will they be forced to return/protect the deposit, but a fine of 3 times that deposit will be levied by a court.

No guarantee of the max award - the courts would have to award a penalty of between 1 and 3 times the deposit equivalent. I don't condone LL/LA's lack of appropriate action regarding deposit reg but there are ways of wording things:remember the FT of this tenancy runs through for a few more months yet.

IMO T should in the first instance use a letter similar to the one suggested by Shelter (look under tenancy deposits page-)

If the deposit is eventually protected, albeit late, the T can still apply to court for the penalty payment ( up to 6 yrs to do so) but the T may want to keep his/her knowledge of that one to themselves for now. It may come in handy as a bargaining tool if there is any dispute over possible dilapidations at the tenancy end.

For Ts whose tenancies started after April 1st, note that there are two further deposit scheme options - one run by Capita and a new insurance based offering from DPS, alongside their pre-exisitng custodial one.

Stujclark

Yorkie1 wrote: »

The last bit of this post is not quite accurate.

The court may issue a penalty of between 1-3 times the deposit.

There has been some discussion on here as to whether court action for this by the tenant would take it out of the small claims track, thus exposing the tenant to higher initial court fees and risk of greater costs liabilities.

OK yes sorry up to 3 times deposit.

It can not technically go through a small claims track process, only multi track, but you can ask the court to treat it as a small claim, there's nothing stopping you asking that.

The majority of cases I have dealt with have been treated as small claims. Where it hasn't, the defendant has usually requested it be dealt with under multi track, but.....

don't forget, the landlord would also have to pay solicitors fees if it was multi track, so an increased cost for them and when they look at their chances of a successful defence, which are, in all honesty very small, they risk having to pay the tenants solicitors fees and increased court fees in addition to their own and up to 3 times the deposit in compensation.

Given this, most defendants/landlords choose to go down the small claims route in my experience.

HaleyP

Thanks everyone!

I got a template letter from the Shelter website and I've sent it to the Landlord and a copy to the Letting Agent.

I'll post when I get a response, hopefully a positive one!

Thanks again,