excessive charges from landlord?

lectoblixx

Hi so I lived in a student house last year (moved out June).
We've just got a list of charges that are going to be taken off the deposit, and while I accept that we needed charging I feel it's excessive.
We left some rubbish, not a massive amount, but we filled the bins when moving out, so all other rubbish was bagged up, and left in the garden next to the filled bins (about 5 bin liners). There was sign on the back of the door which explained any rubbish left would be charged £60 for removal. We had thought about hiring a skip at £80 because we had no way of getting to a landfill site, however we thought £60 removal was a reasonably price for the landlord putting the few bags in the bin once it was emptied.
Now we've just got a list of charges and they've charged £60 EACH, that's £300 to remove 5 bags of rubbish! We're fine paying for the removal, but we were only expecting up to £100 in case they'd hired a skip or something themselves. But I don't know how they can justify £300.

Also, a wall had blu-tac damage, which was mentioned on the inventory, and there hasn't been new damage to it, but we're being charged £30 each for that (£150 in total). Now even if we had caused damage £150 to repaint one small wall white, even adding labour costs etc seems excessive?

I was just wondering where we stand in disputing this cost? I feel like we're being taken for mugs a bit, £450 for rubbish removal and 1 wall painting seems crazy? We've had no charges for cleaning or anything (we went to town on the house making sure everything was super clean).

lectoblixx

Oh and also, when we paid our deposit although it was £250 each, the landlord requested it be given as a whole £1125, rather than 5 separate ones. And nowhere in the contract does it say charges will be applied to each tenant

RAS

Was there a dual signed inventory on moving into the house?

Were your contract individual with the LL or did you all sign one contract.

In which scheme is the deposit registered?

Cycrow

are you sure the £60 for removal wasn't per bag of rubbish ?
it would have been better if you had sorted it out yourself instead of just leaving it up to the landlord to sort out.

£150 for repainting a wall isn't exactly a lot, how much do you think it should have cost?

princeofpounds

Oh and also, when we paid our deposit although it was £250 each, the landlord requested it be given as a whole £1125, rather than 5 separate ones. And nowhere in the contract does it say charges will be applied to each tenant

Charges will be applied on a joint and several basis if the contract was joint and several.

But I don't know how they can justify £300.

I doubt they can, although it depends. 6 bags of normal rubbish that can go in the regular refuse collections would require no more than a few hours of time to put them out for the bin men.

But if it requires a skip then that can be considerably more expensive. I'm surprised you could get a skip for £80 - it would be closer to £300 than £80 where I live. But if you can demonstrate that the cost is nowhere near that great.

Take it to arbitration, it's what it's there for.

£150 for the wall doesn't sound totally out of order. The LL is entitled to hire a painter and it may be one wall but that might be the only job that day, given driving time etc. But again, if you can prove differently based on local labour rates...

The other point to argue is that on betterment. If the wall was not freshly decorated he is not entitled to a newly painted wall - so some depreciation might be applied.

Obviously if you have photos and/or a proper inventory this will help your case. It's all about evidence.

lectoblixx

We were given an inventory when we got our keys that we had to fill in, which was just a list of items the house should have, however we added damage to walls/carpets etc into this. I don't know if this was signed by the landlord, we were told to fill it out, hand it back in at the property shop within 3 days.

The contracts were individual, however we were told the deposit was a group one. Because they wouldn't accept 5 separate cheques, they insisted on receiving the entire deposit in cash, and it was registered with just one tenant, who will receive it back, and have to transfer everyone else their share.

I have no idea, we weren't aware of any schemes when we signed, deposit schemes were only something we were made aware of later. How would we find out which one we are in?

princeofpounds

look online or ring them up, there are only 3.

If your deposit was not protected then you are in a powerful position.

As for aggregating individual tenancy deposits - I'm not aware of how this would be judged in arbitration if one tenant claimed they had nothing to do with it.

However, it is the LL who is responsible for returning your deposit even if the whole amount is paid to the 'lead' tenant, as you have no legal relationship to the 'lead' tenant apart from sharing the house.

(assuming you are right about not having a joint tenancy)

lectoblixx

arthursskips in sheffield that's one of the skip companies we considered hiring, because we had so few bags we assumed that the small £80 one would be fine. Or mrrubble at £85 (it wont let me link to the websites). These are said to hold up to 20 bin liners, which is nowhere close to the amount of rubbish we left out.

i appreciate we should have sorted it ourselves, however, we all moved out at different times, and the last girl didn't have access to a car or any way of getting things to a tip, so we agreed paying the £60 for removal would be fine.

As for the wall, I think it's unfair considering the damage was already done, the previous tenants were charged for paint damage and nothing was repainted when we moved in. Plus the wall is really small, it's just wide enough to fit a queen-sized bed headboard against it.

To be honest we expected charges to add up to maybe £200, £450 still seems like it's really high.

pmlindyloo

Here's the link to check the deposit is registered:
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/paying_for_a_home/tenancy_deposits/deposit_protection_and_tenancy_deposit_schemes

Lots of other useful information on Shelter so have a read through.

lectoblixx

Thanks, i'll have a read through it. I can't seem to find our deposit on any of those schemes, however I might have dates wrong for it so I'll check with my house mates.

To be honest we've had so many problems with the house, it's been a constant battle with the landlord! We had a massive mould problem when we moved in in one of the bedrooms, when they finally came out to sort it they sponged it off everything and said they'd need to paint over the wall mould if it came back. Then when it came back refused to sort it then, told us to wait until christmas and they'd sort it whilst we were all home for Christmas. We explained two people would be living there over most of Christmas, and the landlord told us they couldn't because they'd need to repaint the wall!

The garden wall had collapsed when we came back after Easter and they tried to charge us for fixing it saying we must have done something to it. But the neighbour said they'd done it putting a new fence in so we managed to avoid that after weeks of dispute.

I definitely feel like we've sort of been messed around a bit because we're students; I know we have a reputation for wrecking houses and being unclean, but we had a massive clean, and we even left things we'd bought for the house, (on the initial inventory we were missing an iron, bedroom bins, lamps, toaster, which we went out and bought because the landlord said he wouldn't supply them if they were missing, even though they were things we were told the house came with). And we left these behind for the next tenants

RAS

You paid the deposit in cash? DId you, any of you, get a signed receipt?