Deposit held until bills are paid

Cognito

I recently moved out of the flat I lived in for 2 years. The landlord wants to keep £200 off the deposit for "professional cleaning", which is not unreasonable, but they won't return the rest until they have paid the remainder of my bills off it. They said they have already informed the gas, electricity and water providers that I moved out so it's up to how long they will take to calculate the remaining usage.

Bit of a spanner in the works, due to an organizational fault from the landlord, I only received two bills from Thames Water while I lived there (for 2 years!), so I'm afraid they could take a long time again...

The deposit is a large-ish amount, so the £200 plus bills won't be more than 25% of it.

Where do I stand? Is that ok, shall I wait, or ask them to ... (what/how) ?

Thanks

G_M

Why is the LL paying your bills?

I assume the gas, water etc accounts are in your name? so

a) it is up to you to pay them and
b) the LL has no involvement so should return your deposit immediately.

Is this Engl or Scotland? Is the depsoit registered? Where? Have you put in a request to the scheme for the deposit to be released to you (less the agreed cleaning costs)?

anselld

LL should not withhold deposit. However it is your sole responsibility to pay your bills on time and no "organisational fault" by the landlord can have anything to do with this.

Cognito

that's how it was presented to me by the landlord's secretary, so I thought I'd ask... the bills were in my name. she said they won't return it until they have been paid. she asked my forwarding address (which I gave).

how do I go about claiming it? it's (supposedly) being held by TDS aka The Deposit Service. in London, England.

Cognito

anselld wrote: »

LL should not withhold deposit. However it is your sole responsibility to pay your bills on time and no "organisational fault" by the landlord can have anything to do with this.

I understand all that, and I want to keep the discussion on the deposit, but fyi, out of the 5 flats in the property I am one of just 2 who have received a bill from Thames Water in the last 2 years. suspicious?

thesaint

Have you paid the electricity and gas bills yet?
When did you move out?

J_i_m

Yes maybe.

When I lived in a rented flat I and to wait over a year for my first gas bill, so what do you do? You pick up the phone, call them and chase them up about it.

Cognito

thesaint wrote: »

Have you paid the electricity and gas bills yet?
When did you move out?

I always paid my bills on time, the landlord said they would contact the providers to inform them that I moved out and they would send (me) bills for the remaining balance. I am waiting for those.

I moved out 2 weeks ago.

anselld

Cognito wrote: »

I understand all that, and I want to keep the discussion on the deposit, but fyi, out of the 5 flats in the property I am one of just 2 who have received a bill from Thames Water in the last 2 years. suspicious?

No, not suspicious. Your responsibility to chase up and pay your own bill. Likewise the other flats. Nothing to do with your landlord.

Werdnal

I rang the power company with a meter reading for my currently empty rental flat this week - estimated bill came on previous tenant's usage as he paid by DD and already moved out (I'd already given them his final meter readings when he actually left). They gave me the total amount due there and then and offered to take my payment straight away by card, so if you do the same, you can pay straight away without waiting for paper bills to come through.

In reality though, it is a frequent ploy of LL to try the "no deposit back until bills paid" but the bills are yours and you will be chased by debit collectors if you don't pay them, so LL talking total twaddle!

Cognito

ok, so what do I do?