Estate Agents Refusing to Return Student Deposit

Alarae

Hello, I hope someone can help me after the year long battle that has been between my estate agents and myself and a group of four other students.

Basically they have been slow to do anything when we have asked, leaving us without heating (broken boiler) for three months from about February and large amounts of mould in the upstairs bathroom due to inadequate ventilation.

The issue is concerning our deposit (£1500) which they are refusing to release back to us, despite leaving the house in a presentable condition. In the last month of the tenancy they replaced the boiler with another one upstairs, and did something to the shower which made it useless for three weeks (I had moved out prior to this, but was told about it from my other housemates). This left a load of mess and rubbish everywhere, including stacks of cardboard outside the house. We were instructed that we did not have to clean up after this.

Apparently our deposit is being held because of 'damage to the property', but they are not saying what it is, and keep saying they are waiting on receiving the inventory back from the person who did it. One of my housemate's dad actually managed to ring the person who did our inventory and while she said there was damage, it only amounted to about £20-30. This makes me think that the estate agents are just trying to have it on with us because we are only students. Doesn't help that all their reviews online are negative (wish I looked before!).

I'm positive we never even got an inventory when we moved in- all we had was one in a folder back from 2010, and we moved in July 2012.

Does anyone have any advice of where we can go from here? We've tried emailing/ringing the estate agents numerous times but they just seem to fob us off with saying they are waiting on getting the inventory back. I thought they had to get things sorted within 14 days or something?

Any help will be appreciated, £250 to each of us poor students is a lot to lose!

V_Chic_Chick

Was your deposit protected in a tenancy deposit scheme?

Alarae

I just checked now and it is with mydeposits. The estate agent never told us about this though, except for maybe in the check out stuff they gave us in the last month of our inventory detailing what we needed to do.

bouncydog1

Go online to the mydeposits website and it will explain what you have to do. You write to the letting agent formally requesting the return of your deposit. The agent has 10 days to respond explaining why there are deductions. If you dispute the deductions yur raise a dispute with my deposits and the agent has to return your deposit and pass the disputed amount to mydeposits to hold until the dispute is decided by an arbitrator. The more evidence you have to support your case the better.

Alarae

bouncydog1 wrote: »

Go online to the mydeposits website and it will explain what you have to do. You write to the letting agent formally requesting the return of your deposit. The agent has 10 days to respond explaining why there are deductions. If you dispute the deductions yur raise a dispute with my deposits and the agent has to return your deposit and pass the disputed amount to mydeposits to hold until the dispute is decided by an arbitrator. The more evidence you have to support your case the better.

The thing is we haven't been able to see the inventory, so we can't even say anything about it. They won't release it to us as they state they haven't received it yet, which I believe is a blatant lie.

Would it be best to say in this formal letter as well as the deposit/deductions bit that if they do not comply we will either take dispute with the DPS, or take legal advice about a court claim? We have the facility to do the latter (housemate dad) but would it be a good 'scare tactic' in a sense to get them kicked in to gear to take action?

bouncydog1

Just write or email them - the lead tenant named in the lease must do this. if they do not reply raise a dispute. Get the lease out and pass it to the dad to read and get him to help you write the email to them.

Within all the stuff you were given you should have the details for the deposit scheme and reference number.

They may be waiting for the final check out report but that is their problem.