Landlord withholding deposit - am I responsible for this bill?

diavolina

I have just moved out of a rental property and my landlord is refusing to return my deposit as he says I owe £630 for heating.

There is a central heating system in the apartment block which heats the apartments and generates individual bills for each property, which the management company issues to the apartment owners. I was unaware of this when I moved into the property. There is no mention of it in my tenancy agreement and I have never received any bills in the time I have lived in the apartment.

My landlord is now saying that the management company should have been sending me these bills directly and that it is in my tenancy agreement that I am responsible for all bills. My tenancy agreement actually says that I am responsible for council tax, water, gas and electricity but there is no mention of any separate heating charge. The exact wording is:

‘The tenant must pay in full without any deductions: all charges for gas and electricity consumed on or supplied to the property and (as to electricity where a two part tariff is in force) the standing charge or charges and any meter rent.’

There is no gas supply to the property but I have paid the electricity bill to npower throughout the tenancy.

My landlord texted me this morning saying ‘Please see clause 7 of the tenancy agreement. This includes heating as reference was made to gas and metered payments in respect of supplies to the property’.

I have spoken to the management company and they said that as far as they are concerned their relationship is with the owner, not the tenant, and that they require permission from the owner to bill the tenant directly. My landlord has never given them this permission, hence me never having received any bills. The bills also date back to August 2011, but I only moved into the apartment in February 2012.

I have spoken to the CAB who have advised me that without the heating charge being mentioned in the tenancy agreement I should not be responsible for it. They have also advised me to pursue a claim through the small claims court to get my deposit back as my landlord has not protected it. I know this is illegal but am hesitant to go ahead with a claim without knowing if I am in any way liable for the heating bill.

Apologies for length but I have tried to include all relevant information! Does anyone know if the wording of the tenancy agreement means I am liable for this heating bill? Does it make any difference that the landlord hasn’t given the management company permission to bill me therefore I was unaware these bills even existed?

donfanatico

Write (ink and paper) to your landlord telling them to return the deposit in full within 14 days or you will sue him for non protection which will oblige him to repay in full anyway in addition to you being awarded between 1-3x the deposit as penalty
The heatng bill and the deposit issue are two separate things and he may back down when he realizes. But then again he may be trying it on.

spacey2012

Morals say yes, you owe for your heating, but morals dont put food down on the table.
Legally unless contracted, looks like the Landlord has slipped up, just dont sign anything.
Put in a dispute with the DPA stating landlord refusing to return deposit.

[Deleted User]

I had a problem recently whereby I had not been billed properly by a utility company and unfortunately the usage had happened and so I owed the money, regardless of the billing issue. Your contract appears to be straight forward and does indeed put the responsibility on your to pay for this consumption and the argument can be made that if this had been billed properly you would have spent exactly the same amount of money, so by paying this you will not be out of pocket -- although of course it changed your expectations of your available income but that's an issue on you and not a problem the landlord needs to concern himself with.

As above: take advantage of the deposit situation. That's your hail mary.

diavolina

Thank you for your replies. I assume the DPA is the Deposit Protection Agency? Can I raise a dispute with them even though my landlord didn’t protect my deposit?

Also just to clarify, does the fact that he didn’t protect my deposit mean that I am entitled to the whole amount back no matter what? The CAB advised me that the landlord would still be entitled to make deductions from my deposit despite this.

I get what you’re saying about moral obligations, but as far as I was concerned I was paying all my bills on time and in full. I wasn’t even aware there was a central heating system and assumed (quite naturally in my opinion) that my electricity bills from npower covered my heating (the flat had wall mounted electric heaters).

princeofpounds

Given that the landlord has not protected the deposit, he is in a very weak position.

It's highly likely the landlord is liable for the heating, as the freeholder normally bills the leaseholder, not the occupier. He appears not to have passed liability on to you in the contract effectively.

But it's to court you must go (or at least threaten to go).

If oyu genuinely thought heating was included in the rent, then stand your ground. If not, and you've just got a bit 'lucky', then ethically you should probably aim to reach a more mutual settlement if possible (say, for instance, not suing for deposit non-protection in return for the heating matter being dropped)

rpc

It makes sense that you would be liable for it, but I don't think your contract covers this. My wife had a similar arrangement with hot water although she owned her flat.

You will need to either agree with the LL a return of your deposit or sue him to recover it. You can take him to small claims just for the deposit.

You have an additional route open which is to go for a multi-track claim where you can dispute the deposit deductions AND claim a penalty of 1-3x the deposit. This track is more expensive and costs can be awarded on top of a claim. I have heard that it may be possible to get a multi-track claim assigned to the small claims track as long as you are under the threshold, but don't know if that is true.

EDIT:

princeofpounds wrote: »

(say, for instance, not suing for deposit non-protection in return for the heating matter being dropped)

This is probably the route I would take in your situation. You may not win at small claims. Going for the penalty is more expensive and costs might not be recovered.

Guest101

I would write to him, offer to settle as follows, he returns your full deposit, and cancels the heating charge; and you don't sue him.

Morally and legally your landlord should protect your money, he didn't. But expects it back from u?

RobertoMoir

spacey2012 wrote: »

Morals say yes, you owe for your heating

It's not the tenant's legal or moral fault or responsibility if the LL forgot to adjust the rent to take this into account, or to notify the tenant that they should be getting billed separately for it, or forgot to ensure that their agent was billing the tenant correctly.

It would be different, morally at least, if they were aware that they should be getting billed and failed to mention it, of course, but that isn't the case here.

TBagpuss

even if you owe for the heating, he's trying to get you to pay an extra 7 months worth? I can't see any way at all that you could be liable for heating for the period from August - February, if that was before your tenancy started.

How much is your deposit? If the bills are £630 and cover the period from August 2011 to November 2013, then it might be expected that around £460 of that relates to the time you were in the property. How is the landlord justifying charging you for the extra period?

diavolina

My landlord left me a voicemail this afternoon saying there was a mistake in the bill and that he would have it recalculated to cover only the time period I was in the property. I still won't be paying it though! As RobertoMoir says, had I known from the beginning that these charges existed things would be different, but I didn't. Had my landlord made it clear before I signed the tenancy agreement that there was an additional heating charge to pay on top of my rent, separate to my electricity bill, I would have thought twice about moving into the property.

I've asked him twice now for details of where he has protected my deposit (knowing full well he hasn't) and he keeps dodging the question, saying my deposit is 'secure'.