ex landlord did not protect deposit and will not return it. please help

dancingfairy

You have various ways of getting hold of the landlord/serving notice. You have :
a) the address you rented.
b) perhaps an address of the owner of the property you rented via land registry
c) c/o the agents
d) the old address of the landlord.

I would write to the landlord at each of the addressed she could be at, get proof of posting as well. In fact you could even go as far as to send the same from a second post office with proof of posting, again just to prove service. O.k a bit over the top but you can at least prove in court you have tried everything possible to contact the ll.
The good thing (from your pov) is that she has assets that you can go after. You can get a charging order on the house or potentially make her bankrupt. Now, hopefully it won't come to this but it is worth pointing it in your letter before action. Not only that but you could also point out that failure to protect is an offence as well and that you could sue for 3 the deposit. Hopefully all that will be enough to scare her into returning your deposit.
df

dancingfairy

You *should* in theory eventually get your deposit back, but you can't guarantee you will get it back in time to secure your next tenancy so you will need to make alternative arrangements.
df