Dodgy landlord

snakepitt

hello, i'm moving out of my shared room in my flat next week, and i went to confront the landlord today about getting my 600 quid bond back, and he's trying to say we never paid…
it's quite a dodgy setup, we never signed any contract and go every month to pay the landlord in cash at his cafe he owns.
apparently the flat is a council flat under his daughter's name, although she doesn't live here.. can i threaten the landlord about going to the council to declare their housing fraud if they don't give us our money?
any advice would be appreciated
thanks
M.

mrginge

Course you can.
In fact you have a moral responsibility to do just that.

marleyboy

Yep, just be sure to point out that you also knowingly aided and abetted in the fraud when it suited.

Guest101

snakepitt wrote: »

hello, i'm moving out of my shared room in my flat next week, and i went to confront the landlord today about getting my 600 quid bond back, and he's trying to say we never paid…
it's quite a dodgy setup, we never signed any contract and go every month to pay the landlord in cash at his cafe he owns.
apparently the flat is a council flat under his daughter's name, although she doesn't live here.. can i threaten the landlord about going to the council to declare their housing fraud if they don't give us our money?
any advice would be appreciated
thanks
M.

Yes and you should declare it to hmrc too.

But you paid cash and got no receipt. Why would you do that? Learn the lesson, never again

sandsni

Do you have any proof at all that you paid a deposit? Did you ever get a receipt for any money paid at all? You say "we", so does that mean you have at least one witness that you ever paid money to this man?


Do you have proof that you actually live at that address (like utility bills with your name on them)? If you have proof that you live there then you could possibly use bank statements showing you withdrawing your rent money on a regular basis (plus your witness) as some kind of proof that you were paying rent (likewise with the deposit).


Without proof you have ever paid any money he and his daughter could say you were squatting.


How do you know the flat is under his daughter's name? How do you know he doesn't just pass the cash straight to his daughter?


There may not be any housing fraud going on, just a dodgy LL ripping off naïve tenants.

lighting_up_the_chalice

Are you asking morally? Or legally? In fact, either way the answer is that you should have done just that the moment you realised. The fact that you have absolved those responsibilities for your own personal gain makes you complicit in any offence committed. You knew it was dodgy, but you still lived there. You can hardly be too surprised at the outcome. Threaten what you like, he will call your bluff. So the real question is.... WILL you report him?.... And WILL you report him even if he DOES give the deposit back? Answer NO to either, and you are morally bankrupt. Otherwise, you have your answer.

1.8 MILLION households are on the waiting lists for Social Housing.

snakepitt

Guest101 wrote: »

Yes and you should declare it to hmrc too.

But you paid cash and got no receipt. Why would you do that? Learn the lesson, never again

we asked for receipts but they refused to give us one, plus unfortunately it was the first thing we found available at the time, we got able to move in a proper flat just now.

snakepitt

marleyboy wrote: »

Yep, just be sure to point out that you also knowingly aided and abetted in the fraud when it suited.

we had suspicions about that but had no proof until we came to the situation and did some researching.

Guest101

snakepitt wrote: »

we asked for receipts but they refused to give us one, plus unfortunately it was the first thing we found available at the time, we got able to move in a proper flat just now.

A sign to not pay, sorry.

You have my sympathies, but you have no chance in court.

Report him and move on. You only found out about this situation today right?....

snakepitt

sandsni wrote: »

Do you have any proof at all that you paid a deposit? Did you ever get a receipt for any money paid at all? You say "we", so does that mean you have at least one witness that you ever paid money to this man?


Do you have proof that you actually live at that address (like utility bills with your name on them)? If you have proof that you live there then you could possibly use bank statements showing you withdrawing your rent money on a regular basis (plus your witness) as some kind of proof that you were paying rent (likewise with the deposit).


Without proof you have ever paid any money he and his daughter could say you were squatting.


How do you know the flat is under his daughter's name? How do you know he doesn't just pass the cash straight to his daughter?


There may not be any housing fraud going on, just a dodgy LL ripping off naïve tenants.

We say "We" meaning my girlfriend and I. She has witnessed me handing over this money, along with 2 of my flatmates that work for the landlord. We do have bank statements under both of our names, and a internet bill under my girlfriend's name. Plus it will regularly be saying that we are withdrawing cash each month to pay the rent.
The day we went out of our way to ask for a receipt, all we got was a piece of paper written saying that we had paid money, it looks not official at all.
We did get a handwritten reference from the daughter only today. So she can't say that we were squatting.

snakepitt

Guest101 wrote: »

A sign to not pay, sorry.

You have my sympathies, but you have no chance in court.

Report him and move on. You only found out about this situation today right?....

We made our research on this issue only a few days ago, after we got all the paperwork through the new agency that we are going through the moving processes with. And only today we found out the situation with the bond.