Landlord withholding part of deposit

Buffyno52

I moved out of a rental property I shared with 2 friends at the end of October. One friend also moved out and the other stayed on with new tenants.
Our landlord checked the flat and returned 650 of the 750 deposit each, he kept back £100 from each of us to repair a broken spring in the sofa.
5 weeks have now passed and he is still dawdling about getting someone in to fix the sofa and sort the remaining £300 out. I can't see the sofa costing £300 so I know we will have money returned, I'm getting tired of chasing him up and wondering how to proceed?

He did claim that someone was coming in on Monday to look at it, however this never happened and now apparently this guy is too old so he doesn't want to bother him again, and is finding another upholsterer!

RAS

How old do you think this sofa was when you moved in? Brand new? What did it say on the inventory when you moved in?

Any idea how the spring got broken?

Which deposit scheme did he use?

Jordo

Raise a query with the DPS who will have been holding your deposit. If the couch was broken then fair enough, you pay, but he has to show you the receipt from the original sofa when replacing it (sofas are cheap enough now there's no point in getting a specialist to repair them).

Don't bother dealing with the LL, use the DPS's official channels.

I had this problem a few years back, LL's will try and rob tenants and make up figures - get the receipts and do everything in writing.

G_M

Fro what you say this is not a dispute issue, but a repairing one.

You do not appear to be contesting the broken spring. And I'm not sure what you mean by 'sort the remaining £300'.

As for repairing the sofa, that is part of the new tenancy, with new tenants (even if it includes one of your friends too).

They should write to the LL reporting the broken sofa and ask for a repair/replacement.

Of course,if you think £300 is too much to deduct from the deposit, then write and contest it, and if necessary use the scheme dispute process.

Buffyno52

Thank you for your responses.
The sofa was 2 years old when we moved in and we were there for another 2 years. There was no specific event that caused it to break, it was just like it one day! He compared it to children jumping on it! It has a lump in one of the cushions now where something is pushing up in it, it is still usable.

I'm going to contact him about the deposit scheme as we didn't have any documentation on this (stupid i know).
My next move is to contact them..

Buffyno52

G_M wrote: »

Fro what you say this is not a dispute issue, but a repairing one.

You do not appear to be contesting the broken spring. And I'm not sure what you mean by 'sort the remaining £300'.
To be honest I'm not sure if we can claim the broken spring is general 'wear and tear' so we have just gone along with this at the moment.


They should write to the LL reporting the broken sofa and ask for a repair/replacement.
I will advise my friend of this

Of course,if you think £300 is too much to deduct from the deposit, then write and contest it, and if necessary use the scheme dispute process.

I've just emailed him to find our which scheme we are with so I can solve it directly with them hopefully. I don't think the repair cost should be £300.

G_M

Ifyou are considering a formal dispute

a) write. As in a letter (to the address provided for this purpose)

b) check the 5 Deposits schemes directly yourself