Deposit Deductions - Questions and queries

underhanded

Hi,

I recently finished tenancy at a house me and 3 other had rented for 2 years. We just received our landlords assesment (although through the letting agency) and the total cost of dilapidations came to £740. I'm relatively new to this, as had only rented once before, and they were such shady landlords the deposit actually became the last of our problems, yet feel this is pretty excessive, as we all felt we left the house in good nick once we left. So I have some questions, but 1st, I guess I should explain a little about the house, and how we left it.

Over the two years, we had inspections for the letting agents every so often, and they were always very positive as to how we kept the house. When we left, we did a pretty exstensive cleaning job on the house, and whilst certainly not perfect, we certainly didn't leave it in a state. We admittedly left some belongings in the house, if i was to estimate, around 4-5 bin bags worth. Only one thing was broken (although there are some questions in regard to that) and 3 things 'missing' (again questions in regard to that). Below are my questions

I understand all deposits are held by the DPS, and a friend informed me that it is possible to logon to their website to gain some info on the deposit, does anyone know how to do this?

We got charged £480 for cleaning, which we feel excessive.... A few questions on that

Can we ask for a breakdown of the costs in regards to this?

Can we use quotes or estimates we find based on how we left the house, it size etc, in dispute?

The day we moved out the landlord had builders in to install a new kitchen and paint over exessive mould (something to be fair, he didn't charge us for) Is this something that could negate parts of the cleaning fee as he had builders tramping in out the place all day?

We to best of our knowledge, never received an inventory when we moved in. Stupidly (2 years ago I was a lot less organised, responsible) we never asked for one, and now we've moved out, things seem to be on there that were never in the house in the 1st place. Should they of given us one? How do we dispute missing items (totalling around £80) that we think they never gave us in the first place? One thing that seems to worry me is they said a desk was 'damaged' to the cost of £40, yet this desk was bought by a tenant and left there (it was only minor damage and a nice desk!). This makes me think they may not have had a comprehensive inventory list when we moved in.

A final question, can we ask a breakdown of the cost of removing personal items from the house? (the previous tenants had left LOADS of stuff under the decking in the garden and under the sink, which we just left, and would like to know if we've been charged this or not).

I appreciate theres a lot of questions, and apologies if im waffling a bit, any help is very much appreciated!

DRP

underhanded wrote: »

We to best of our knowledge, never received an inventory when we moved in. Stupidly (2 years ago I was a lot less organised, responsible) we never asked for one, and now we've moved out, things seem to be on there that were never in the house in the 1st place. Should they of given us one?

the perceived wisdom on this forum is that the inventory is to protect the LL, not the tenant.

IN other words, in order to claim from your deposit the LL needs a detailed inventory (dated, signed by the tenant) in order to prove the condition of the property and hence prove that the tenant left the place in a worse condition.

If you're sure there was none, then I would be claiming back my deposit right now from the DPS if i were you.

underhanded

Thanks, we're very concerned as there are items on the inventory which we are 100% confident were never in place when we moved in (for example shelves in the door of our fridge - what would we gain from removing these?). I shall ask our LL/letting agents for a detailed inventory.

I also received a breakdown of cleaning costs, one of these was the 'mopping and vacuuming of floors'. We did this thoroughly when we moved out, we then witnessed, on the day of checking out, builders traipsing in and out of the house all day, clearly making the floor dirty - how can it be justified to charge for mopping and vacuuming AFTER this?

Mr_Moo_2

There are a number of different deposit protection services - have a look here and check which one you're on.

https://www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection/overview

Without an inventory, the LL is going to have a hard time proving anything to justify deductions (what DRP says above), so once you've found out which service you're on, check out their dispute procedure and register one.

Tjrw1985

You can't.

The LL has to prove it was you that did this.

First thing is to check that there is a signed inventory from when you moved in? If not, then the LL will struggle to deduct anything.

Just remember, that according to the DPS, "the onus of proof lies with the LL"

Yes you are entitled to a breakdown of costs.

underhanded

Hi, thanks for the help so far.

I wrote our reply to the landlords initial deductions, and we just received a reply. Now unfortunately it looks like we're in a bit of an untenanable position. It turns out one of my housemates DID receive an inventory at the start of our tenancy (I moved in about a month later due to work commitments), and that they also signed this agreement. The fact still remains that the items they had on that report were never in our property. Its just unfortunate that this housemate signed it, never remembered he'd done it, and seemed incapable of keeping a copy for us (I won't go on about it, but anyone who's shared houses with people know such occurrences happen, some people simply don't operate with the same level of responsibility as others).

Does anyone know if we have a case now? Its so frustrating, as if it'd been any other housemate, it would have most likely never have been signed, and it'd have at least been flagged up at the START of our tenancy, not the END. How much weight do these signed inventories hold? Can we still claim the items weren't there, as they weren't? Admittedly, I can see hwo the report can eb confusing, as they claim that there were 'fridge door stores' in our fridge (although these were never there). But I can imagine if someone looked at this, they may have imagined it meant the general fridge shelves/storage boxes? Another item that was never there, a 'mirror in room 1', could we argue that the housemate wasn't aware what room this was, and assumed it was actually room 3 (there was a mirror in room 3).

wannahouse

£430 for a clean is not horrendous..
we had 6 quotes for a 2 bed flat checkout clean in london,and despite them all saying "end of tenancy cleans from £120 for 2 bed," we ended up having to pay £650 to have the flat cleaned, as they were all expensive and it took two days...
sometimes i think tenants dont actually appreciate how much things ACTUALLY cost, as just getting the oven cleaned is charged at around £60.
our tenants left the flat in an absolute state, so although i tried to keep the costs down by getting 6 quotes, i feel no sympathy for them having to pay a fair market rate to clean it....it was disgusting, and these were two professional cityworker males, so i expected a little more self respect from them!
if you have a signed inventory then you're stuffed really.
it was the lead tenants job to check thoroughly and disagree or note differences and if they didn't do that,because they were too lazy to check properly, then you really don't have a leg to stand on on alot of those issues.

underhanded

Thanks I appreciate the feedback.

I fear you're right in regards to the inventory...Its just one of those things, I should have been more savvy about it and made sure it all got checked out...but when you're the person who ends up being responsible for nearly everything else in the house (lazy housemates) you almost petulantly don't want any other responsibility I suppose...But there we go.

I just can't help having a bad taste in my mouth from the whole affair. My new letting agent is fantastic, and just the way he and his company operates shows my how valuable it is to have a fair and attentive agent on your side. This place with the deposit issue were never good...with anything, so unresponsive to getting back to any of our concerns, when we had pipe leaks and mould for example, and I just feel that at the end of the day when your renting a property for hundreds of pounds a month things shouldn't be that way. We're still going to try fight it, at the end of the day they're claiming things were in the house that didn't exist, even if we were stupid and signed and inventory without checking throughly.