Tenancy Deposit Schemes - BEWARE of Countrywide

emmajon

I can see both sides of the coin here, firstly if you let/sell a property you are responsible for leaving it clean and tidy. We recently sold our home and were re-locating to the other end of the country, the removals arrived and we quickly became involved in assisting them with moving boxes and furniture etc. As they were clearing a room I was dashing in and hoovering up and swishing the cloth round window sills etc, but after the guys taking out large items that I hadn't been able to move prior to them moving those areas needed to be cleaned thoroughly but I simply didn't have time to clean as well as I would have liked. I did not go around the property checking the lightbulbs and inspecting the skirting boards - I simply left a note saying I had done the best I could. From a different viewpoint, we rented a house a few years back, paid a large deposit and moved in. Although the house was not rancid it was not what I would regard as clean either and before filling the cupboards or putting furniture in it's final place I had to hoover, dust and mop. I was not particularly offended by this, at the end of the day when a property has been empty either for one day or more it accumulates dust and surprisingly a light bulb can go at any time and as you cannot determine the exact life of the bulb then I do not think it is fair to charge someone for these tasks that were claimed needed attention. I would also like to point out that when we left that house we had an inspection - for which I had spent a lot of time cleaning, the guy even put his hand in the oven and felt the roof of it for grease! A pity I hadn't done the same before I moved in - coz it sure as hell wasn't clean then - I could have billed the LL for the cost of a professional oven cleaner! I'm proud to say when the oven was inspected it was spotless!! So these things need to be level on all aspects not just in favour of the LL.

thesaint

Meatballs wrote: »

The Saint:



I could go into any property in the world and say it needs dusting and light cleaning and it would be very hard to argue against because it's such a vague statement.

Correct, that's why it is best to attend the check-out.

If I missed one small section of skirting board in the whole house, that would require dusting and light cleaning. Does it deserve £50? Sod off.

Possibly, possibly not.
I shall politely decline your request for me to 'sod off'.

But we don't know either way because the LA/LL didn't bother to evidence what needed doing.

They did, it was: "Dusting, light cleaning and changing light bulbs".

Its fine if you have a good responsible landlord/LA, but the problem is, they're not all like that. Thats why the system has been needed and has been put into place. And it's obviously not working if landlords can get through a dispute without even having 1 quote/bill or evidencing what work needed doing properly. Whats the point of the dispute service if they dont do it properly? I guess the arbitrators at the other end don't actually have a clue themselves - even a lot of LA's dont.

Like GorgeousGeorge said earlier, the arbitration service are not going to spend their time resolving a £50 bill. You always have the option of going to court to clawback your money if you feel that it has been unfairly witheld.

As you say £50 is such a paltry amount to them, but to many tenants it can be worth quite a lot! I never said that £50 is a paltry amount.

My personal opinion is that tenants will not have the wholesale plundering of their deposits that happened to the minority of them, but many more will have the odd £50/£60 deducted as landlords often swallowed these losses but have now got the backing of the TDS.

picnic

forgive me if im wrong.. but i thought that the problem the OP has is that John Hards is a director of BOTH countywide AND Association of Residential Lettings Agents and The Dispute Service.... this giving anyone letting from countrywide (by daughter being one of them) little or no choice on who they can complain too... the fact that the house they left needed 'dusting and light cleaning' is no the only issue.. what if the problem had been for more money or a less trivial matter? can some one who works for the industry that the dispute service's cover really be impartial??
imo i dont think so.....

olly300

picnic that is exactly what I understood from the OP.

In addition if OP if you didn't clean the lampshades, which most people forget if all the lights are working, in changing the light bulb they may have seen dust on the lampshade and cleaned it. I don't know why this would cost £50 which is the problem with no receipts.

Meatballs

But we don't know either way because the LA/LL didn't bother to evidence what needed doing.

They did, it was: "Dusting, light cleaning and changing light bulbs".

Again and again and again vague statements dont even come close to evidence they are extremely hard to argue against because there is no real basis to them! The government are full of them.

E.g. "The government's aim is to drive up educational standards".

Which translates to "We want education to be better, but we dont know how we are going to do it, nor do we know how we are going to judge it - the standards we mentioned don't actually exist in a usable sense."

Gorgeous_George

When my tenant moves out we shall check the property together. If we cannot agree on any damage/cleaning, I shall appoint an independant assessor to verify the work required. Before doing so, I shall appoint a private investigator to make sure my independant assessor is truely independant (not sure how I find out if the PI is truely indepandant). If my tenant disagrees with my selection, he/she will be able to appoint a second independant assessor. I shall get my PI to confirm that the 2nd independant assessor is truely independant.

Once the level of work is agreed (some weeks after the tenancy ended = lost rent), I shall invite three tradesman/cleaning companies to quote for the work. Selecting the cheapest may lead to a further delay in recovering the property to a suitable condition (because they will be busy providing quotes) = more lost rent.

After the work is completed I shall attend the property again with my three indepenadant assessors to confirm that the work has been completed correctly.

Now I can re-let the property and earn some money to pay my BTL mortgage.

OR, maybe I'll change the lightbulb myself and increase the rent by a couple of pounds per week to cover the first £100 worth of remedial work!



GG

Victim_of_Countrywide

Thank you picnic and olly300 - you are exactly right - my main point is about the Conflict of Interest issue. Though estate agents are allowed to regulate themselves I still feel that we have to question a system which allows someone from the board of the estate agent to be on the board of the company that handles disputes with that estate agent!

Olly300, thanks for suggesting I write to my MP. He has replied already! Here is his response:

I would suppose that as the trade is acting in a way that is self-regulating that it is possible for member organisations to be on the board of the body itself. Your e-mail prompts me to ask the organisation as to what is done to limit conflicts of interest.

I will also look into the issue of what regulation is provided currently to the estate agency trade and what could be done to tighten up outside regulation.

I am really pleased that you have drawn this to my attention.
Andrew Pelling MP

I will keep everyone informed of any further contact I receive from my MP. In the mean time, please keep your comments coming.

On the point of the cleaning of my old flat I would like to defend my honour here! :A

I spent days in advance cleaning and cleaning and also checking over and over the inventory list, check in report etc. I was terrified of the inventory checker as I'd met her before and she was very scary and scowled a lot!

On checking in she intentially did not note the following:

1) Light fittings faulty in certain rooms - lights blew when she first turned lights on and some bulbs in certain multi light fittings could not work even with new bulbs. We got this added to the check in report within a couple of days. Yet it is these light bulbs that are referred to in the check-out report.

2) Laminate flooring fitted badly and coming up in hallway - again we got this added to the check in report. On check-out she lay on the floor with her head to the ground looking for fault. She could not charge us for the problems that were the landlord's responsibilty so she found dust by lying on the ground for a minute and looking around!

3) The light cleaning refers to - a few watermarks on the inside of the washing machine door and the fact that we left a few items in kitchen cupboard. The items were light bulbs! We had replaced bulbs where possible with energy savers and kept the originals in a cupboard. We left all energy savers in for the new tenants. We also left dishwasher tablets for the new tenants as we have no dishwasher in our new place.

I wish I had taken pictures but she did not give me a chance to think. She waited until the end of her hour to make any comments and then rushed us out because she had another appointment. She did not even let me use the duster I had in my hand!

I hoped The Dispute Service would take note of my defense but it was ignored. Hence my suspicion of the conflict of interest. I wish I had gone to Small Claims Court instead, but I thought this was the proper route.

Victim_of_Countrywide

And another thing!

Countrywide never provided any evidence that any of these minor works were in fact carried out. In fact I have an email from them saying they did not clean the flat in the week between me moving out and the new tenants moving in.

They seem to think it intelligent to suggest they were going to do the cleaning once the dispute was resolved. Does that mean they were only picking up my dead skin cells?...and leaving the new tenants dust right where it is!

The dispute process is over and they still have not done any cleaning. They cannot explain to me how they are going to do it after 8 months of me moving out!

There is no escaping the fact that I cleaned the flat to a very high standard allowing them to raise the rent to the new tenants. There is no doubt I have been ripped off. I am not getting stressed over my £50 - I am getting stressed that other people more vulnerable than me are getting ripped off and I want to raise awareness of the conflict of interest issue. Good tenants still have nowhere to turn and no-one to protect them.

Guy_Montag

Can you not take them to the county court anyway?

Meatballs

Ah I had a weird thought when I first read this thread that it was a bit early to be an actual TDS case, 8 months it must have been before the new deposit regs came in.

GG:

I never suggested they should have to goto the ends of the earth but is 1 quote or at least a bill too hard to ask for? As you can see from the OP they haven't even done the 'light cleaning' they charged for.

I would send a letter to the new tenants and say you were charged £50 for cleaning that they never did. They should recover this from the LA/LL because obviously if the work was never done they had to do it themselves. At least they'll have been warned and they could be a pain in the !!! to the LA