Return of deposit?

lowely

Hi All,

I was hoping someone may be able to help as previous advice from the board has been really helpful.

The situation:
It is now 10 working days since we checked out of our property and we still haven't heard from the landlady re: our deposit. Foxtons have sent her a reminder but she has not responded. The deposit is insured with MyDeposits.

Background info
When we first moved in we had to have the property cleaned as it was dirty. The contract also said that the landlady had to carry out an inventory but she declined to do this. Foxtons advised us to do one ourselves (to protect ourselves) and we did this and let the landlady know. We took some pictures but we missed out quite a few things as we aren't exactly experts in this. The garden was in an awful state as were other things but I did not take photos of these

The checkout
The landlady agreed to a check out and brought two independent witnesses with her. she tried to blame us for everything wrong with the property (even though it was already there and even though we had everything professionally cleaned). She said she was going to charge us to re-do the entire garden amongst other things. I remained calm and told her I completely disagreed and that the problems she mentioned were already present when we moved in. She said it was our fault and that we had no photo evidence to prove that we didn't cause the damage.


This was how it was left 10 working days ago and we have not heard anything since.......

Apologies for the length of the message! IF anyone has any advice on 1. Where we stand and 2. What to do next, I would really appreciate it! Does the fact that we missed things off our own unprofessional inventory harm us?

Thanks!!

Lowely.

[Deleted User]

Remember that she also has NO inventory or pictures to prove that things were as she says when you moved in. This will be very important.

johannalf88

Don't worry. If she attempts to keep it lodge a dispute with the deposit people.

We had almost the exact same situation, lodged the dispute online, sent the paperwork off (our pics of move in etc) and they favoured us and we got all the money back. (LL didn't even bother to reply to deposit people!)

azure2444

I am also in dispute with Foxtons over my deposit. It also took them 10 working days (after much reminding from me) to come back to me, and they also stated problems getting in touch with the landlord. Now the landlord is seeking a sizeable deduction over something which is entirely unfair (in my opinion).

It could be nothing, but there are some similarities there...

edited to add: Have you requested your deposit back from the landlord or Foxtons in writing yet? You have to have done this a minimum of 14 days ago before you can initiate the deposit protection scheme process.