Legal dispute with Landlord

sherbert106

I recently left a rental property and have now entered a dispute with the landlord who is threatening to take me to a small claims court.

When we moved into the property we noticed a big damp patch on the wall and in the bathroom, we asked someone to take a look at it and a bloke came in and painted over it.

About 8 months later fungus appeared in the bathroom and a brown dust covered all the surfaces. We reported it to her and she got in builders who discovered a dry rot infestation beneath the floor and the bath. The net effect of this was that the entire bathroom had to be removed and lots of floorboards costing her 7000. We could not live in the property for two weeks. We agreed with her after alot of back and forthing that we would not need to pay two weeks rent.

2 months later now we are moving out she is claiming its now our fault the works were so extensive as we did not notify her earlier. She is threatening my deposit and saying she is going to start legal proceedings to reclaim her costs for the work. Does she have a case? I feel like we told her when we moved in and she got it painted over so how can we be liable?

ShALLaX

Do you have proof of all such correspondence and the works conducted (and by whom they were instructed)? If so, you probably don't have much to worry about.

sherbert106

ShALLaX wrote: »

Do you have proof of all such correspondence and the works conducted (and by whom they were instructed)? If so, you probably don't have much to worry about.

All of the correspondence I have had with the Landlord has been via email as she is in france.

The guy that initially painted the wall was a handyman. We mentioned the damp initially to the letting agent as we were viewing the property. She advised the landlady who got a handyman to just paint it over. She has conceded we made her aware of it in writing but then is saying we didn't tell her when it escalated. The dry rot was underneath the floorboard and bath so we couldn't see it until the brown spores started appearing. I spoke to one of the builders and he said the dry rot would have been there for a number of years (before our tenancy). Would it be worth contacting the dry rot contractor independently and getting this confirmed ?

ShALLaX

If you think you can get a written statement from them to attest to this, it's probably worth it.

grifferz

I also cannot imagine a professional landlord that would seriously stake their ability to get this money off of you on the basis of an argument in court that you didn't tell them about dry rot soon enough. All the work they have done has been in response to you reporting things. If they wanted to know more detail about the property they should have inspected it themselves, which is their duty as well.

So in my view this is just a bluff designed to get you to pay something towards their costs, without actually ending up in court, and if it was me I would be telling them to go ahead and take it to small claims.

However, many landlords are not professional - some people are downright mentally unstable. You should probably get some real legal advice from a legal professional as to the extent of your exposure here.

olly300

As you have the email conversation between you let her take you to court.

She will get nothing as dry rot doesn't appear overnight.