'Fair' deposit deductions?

Wywth

mellymeepmeep wrote: »

We checked the wattage and make of the original ones and they matched perfectly with the ones we bought locally so yeah it was like for like. It was definitely the electrics because the place was like the house that jack built (we didn't have our own boiler for 2yrs of living there, had to wait for heating when the people upstairs decided to put it on haha!) but that's not relevant I know. I just completely forgot about doing it to be honest because we gave up using the lights after a month of living there!

We know the new tenants and I went round the other day with a batch of bulbs for them and I have an email confirming they are OK with that, so there isn't going to be any cost for the landlord now (well there will be if the new tenants manage to get the electrics looked at, we tried countless times but nowt materialised.)

We didn't get the inventory signed but it was emailed to the agent and they replied to acknowledge recieving it and said they would "look into" the problems we reported, three years later we were still waiting for it haha!

Did you pay £45 each for them? :eek:

If so, I would have taken them back to the retailer for a full refund under SoGA.

Wywth

mellymeepmeep wrote: »

We moved out of the place we rented for the past 3 years at the end of June, as far as I'm concerned we've been great tenants making sure we looked after the property. I'm really bitter after so many bad experiences with deposits getting returned and I was a little wary on sign-out day when we handed our keys into the letting agents (it was a managed property so we don't deal with the landlord at all.) They've recently changed company name so our deposit was registered in the DPS under their old details. Anyway we got a phone call last week from the agent saying they'd conducted the inspection and are now going to charge us £45 PER lightbulb that we hadn't replaced. The whole flat is decked out in those stupid LED spotlights and the electrics were so dodgy it meant that we got no more than a week out of the bulbs each time we replaced them so we just stopped using them and bought lamps instead... this was reported to the agents countless times and noted in the check-in inventory we did ourselves so I've got evidence. I just want to know how the hell they can pluck a figure of £45 for a lightbulb that we bought from QLM round the corner for £2 each!?

I'm having to go through the DPS to get our deposits back because its been over 4 weeks since we moved out now and apart from that phone call things have not progessed at all in getting our deposit back. I have to get forms signed by a solicitor which I swear I've not had to do before in the adjudication process, is this a new thing? Its going to cost me money I'd rather not pay.

How did you note on the ingoing inventory that the electrics were dodgy and the light bulbs lasted less than a week?

Did the property perhaps come with a DeLorean car in the garage and a spare flux capacitor? :huh:

mellymeepmeep

The light bulbs that were blown when we moved in were reported as were the spaces where the fittings were broken, after replacing the broken ones ourselves we noticed that they blew again after a week and we then reported it to the agents via email again, so dodgy electrics wasn't specifically on the check-in inventory but it was reported pretty soon after we moved in. As well as a few months down the line, then 2 years into our tenancy again. Nothing was ever done, but the report was acknowledged every time by the agents.

mellymeepmeep

Wywth wrote: »

Did you pay £45 each for them? :eek:

If so, I would have taken them back to the retailer for a full refund under SoGA.

Definitely not! We got the exact same ones that were originally in the property for £2 each, which is why I'm shocked they can pluck out a totally random figure of £45 each bulb???

embob74

We had a new build property which had spotlights all downstairs (25 in total) and they lasted a very short time. We ended up buying ours from the poundshop so we could have a stock ready. I left about 10 spares for the new tenant when we left.
I did initially think it was dodgy electrics (the cooker, extractor and fridge all 'blew') but it was checked and found to be ok. Although the check consisted of just a probe in one area.....

I would think wear and tear would be the way to get out of this one but I'm not sure that fair wear and tear would apply to EVERY bulb missing or not working.

Btw our neighbour bought expensive LED bulbs and they did last quite a few years so cheap isn't always the way to go!

DRP

mellymeepmeep wrote: »

The light bulbs that were blown when we moved in were reported as were the spaces where the fittings were broken, after replacing the broken ones ourselves we noticed that they blew again after a week and we then reported it to the agents via email again, so dodgy electrics wasn't specifically on the check-in inventory but it was reported pretty soon after we moved in. As well as a few months down the line, then 2 years into our tenancy again. Nothing was ever done, but the report was acknowledged every time by the agents.

It sounds like that is pretty good evidence for the DPS to classify the bulbs as wear & tear.