Landlord has not returned deposit and is not communicating at all

DRP

BigZig wrote: »

DRP

As I said, it was a few months back (March/April) and I wasn't sure what it meant at the time. I was pretty ignorant to this legal requirement. But, as I recall, it said something along the lines of 'your deposit may not (or may no longer) be protected by a government-backed deposit scheme'. It then mentioned about contacting the landlord to ensure that it would be put into another scheme or to see what he was doing with my deposit.

As to why it was sent, I have no idea. It just arrived randomly one day. This is another reason why I thought nothing of it. I knew nothing about deposit protection schemes. I had not received information that it was protected in the first place, so just assumed it was a bit of junk mail. With hindsight, I would have made a lot more of a deal of it had I understood it.

Oh i see - so the letter wasn't from the LL? it was from the DPS?

BigZig

DRP wrote: »

Oh i see - so the letter wasn't from the LL? it was from the DPS?

Sorry, no it wasn't from the landlord. I'm fairly certain it was from the DPS, yes.

RAS

So have you checked with the DPS under the various potential start dates for the tenancy?

The day you were supposed to move in, the day you moved in, possibly your first rental date?

BigZig

RAS wrote: »

Exact date - day and month.

Having now looked at my assured shorthold tenancy agreement, there is not an exact date listed for the end of the fixed term on the property. It just has the following information:

Term: A term certain of Six (months] from the Commencement Date
Commencement Date: 12th November 2011
Rental Period: Monthly

That is what it says, word-for-word (including the mis-matched brackets!)

BigZig

RAS wrote: »

So have you checked with the DPS under the various potential start dates for the tenancy?

The day you were supposed to move in, the day you moved in, possibly your first rental date?

I did it with the day on which I paid my deposit, the day I was supposed to move in and the day I actually moved in as per my contract (which started after the two weeks' free rent period) with all four schemes. With the DPS, I believe that you just have to put the month and year, so I tried October and November 2011.

I have also now tried December 2011, in case it would be thefirst rent after the initial deposit/month-up-front rent, but that too is showing no record.

Physics

BigZig wrote: »

Thanks, Physics. I am pretty sure that it will be a small claims court. So I'd pretty much 'represent' myself? Or would you suggest legal representation?

This particular landlord owns hundreds of properties and, judging by the area of his contact address, is pretty well off! So I imagine he'd probably be able to afford pretty decent representation.

You don't need legal representation in a small claims court. If the landlord hired a fancy lawyer to represent him, the judge would probably frown on this - it's a court for regular people, and wealth shouldn't be involved. You'd probably have some help from the judge to keep things 'fair'. That's the point of the entire thing.