Q: how long for refund of rental deposit?

isleofdogs

We have moved out of a rental house a week ago. We had the whole house professionally cleaned and carpet steam cleaned. Landlord (moved back to his house) was very happy that house was cleaner and gardens neater than when we moved in 20 months ago! He said he told agent to refund our deposit without any deduction. We tried to contact agent to ask when and how this should be done. Agent did not answer over the phone, but told us to email head office. We did and have not heard back from agent at all.

We would like to know what we should do to get our refund? How long should this take? Does agent normally send cheque or deposit money into our bank account? Agent did not manage the property, instead we paid landlord directly into his bank account.

We are getting very frustrated that agent was not willing to answer our questions on the refund of the deposit - almost £4,000 !

Thank you in advance.

RAS

With which scheme is the deposit registered? Go to the web-site and claim you deposit back.

isleofdogs

RAS wrote: »

With which scheme is the deposit registered? Go to the web-site and claim you deposit back.

This is a problem. When we paid the security deposit to the agent, he said it would go into the landlord's account (agent said this is legitimate). They have never notified us which scheme it has been held in. Now, landlord said we have to take it up with agent.

Just heard back from agent, after I made an upsetting phone call, asking for our bank account details and refund of deposit will take up to 20 days!

RAS

You do know that it is illegal to fail to register a deposit?

THE LL cannot issue a valid S21 notice if it is not registered within 30 days and the prescribed information provided to you.

You can sue the LL for up to 3 times the deposit sum. Write to the LL at the address for the serving of notices and give them one week to pay or you sue.

You could let the agent know that you are planning to do this first:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

dimbo61

You need to write a "Letter before Action" asking which DPS scheme was the deposit registered in ?
Why was the prescribed information and a copy of the certificate not supplied.
State you have check with the DPS people and NO Deposit was registered.
Inform the Landlord you want the FULL deposit returned within 7 days or you will sue him/her via the small claims court.
Copy in the Letting Agent and check if they are registered with any Letting Agents BODY ie ARLA

Werdnal

Refer to the Shelter website, as there is guidance and a template letter for this situation.

However, when agents protect deposits, they sometimes use insurance based schemes, where they pay a premium to cover the deposit, and the money doesn't actually get paid into the scheme. This could be what they mean by the money is in the LL's account. Nevertheless, the deposit should be registered with a scheme (even if it is an insurance based one) and the full information from that scheme should have been forwarded to you with 30 days of deposit payment. If you never received this, there is a breach of deposit protection rules and the LL is ultimately responsible for this and any penalty that applies.

isleofdogs

Thanks, everyone, for your helpful replies. Much appreciated.

I will digest the info and discuss with hubby about an appropriate course of action. I will email the agent asking where the deposit has been held. Landlord and agent have never given us any certificate or info on the deposit, after we made the payment.

EdGasket

My daughter is in the same situation. LL not giving deposit back and she has never been informed which deposit protection scheme the LL is using (if any). It was a student let for 12 months which ended over a month ago. LL just making silly excuses for not returning the deposit; not even worth printing them. If we go down the small claims court route, you have to specify how much to claim. So should she claim just the deposit or twice the deposit, or the deposit + 3 times the deposit because no details of the deposit protection scheme were provided? The more you are claiming, the dearer the court fee so we don't want to claim for an additional 3 times the deposit if we are unlikely to be awarded it. What does it mean by you might get 1 to 3 times the deposit as compensation? Who decides if it is 1 times or 2 or 3 times and what criteria do they use?

Werdnal

EdG, you cannot just choose to claim for 3x the deposit. It goes through a specific Part 8 court process, via the County Court with costs of £1K+ to bring the case - judge with decide the penalty and should award costs against the LL if successful. You cannot use the small claims process to get the penalty, only to reclaim the deposit amount due.

However, your daughter should follow the advice above and see the Shelter Website, where there is a template letter and write the agent/LL to ask for the deposit back. If they refuse, she can of course follow the suggested penalty route if she has the time and financial resources to bring the claim, or use a moneyclaim online process to get just the deposit back.

There are several other deposit related posts here today, so look through them for more info and advice. Have you/she checked the schemes to see if it was ever actually protected? If could be there, even if you were never told.

isleofdogs

Just want to update on our situation.

Hubby has been furious so asked me to keep making phone calls and sending emails to the agent, and listing help from landlord, other people as well as sending an email to the Property Ombudsman. Agent said we have to wait for 21 days after moving out to get our deposit back. So, everyone has advised us to do this before making more phone calls and sending more emails.

Agent will not divulge where they have placed the deposit - making it impossible for us to know where to go to for help. The business ethics of real estate agents are appalling.

In Australia, agents are regulated by the government (one phone call to Ombudsman will make them jump) and rental deposits have to be lodged with a single government authority (so agents cannot abuse or keep them illegally). Why can't the same things be done here?

DRP

isleofdogs wrote: »

Just want to update on our situation.

Hubby has been furious so asked me to keep making phone calls and sending emails to the agent, and listing help from landlord, other people as well as sending an email to the Property Ombudsman. Agent said we have to wait for 21 days after moving out to get our deposit back. So, everyone has advised us to do this before making more phone calls and sending more emails.

Agent will not divulge where they have placed the deposit - making it impossible for us to know where to go to for help. The business ethics of real estate agents are appalling.

In Australia, agents are regulated by the government (one phone call to Ombudsman will make them jump) and rental deposits have to be lodged with a single government authority (so agents cannot abuse or keep them illegally). Why can't the same things be done here?

Does your LL realise that ultimately it is his responsibility to return your deposit (not the agent) so if your deposit isn't registered in any of the protection schemes then he is in big trouble. Have you checked each scheme?