Prescribed Information - Tenants Claim It Was Not Given

Malc400

The deposit for my ex tenants who moved in June 2011 was registered correctly in time with an approved scheme and my ex tenants and I agreed the return of the deposit (50/50 split for agreed and provable damage) in January 2013.

I have now just received a letter from them claiming that although I served the prescribed information incorporated into the tenancy agreement and signed it I failed to provide them with the scheme leaflet and am now liable to pay them 3 times the deposit.


It seems that they can try to claim this by denying receiving it. I am sure I did give it to them but cannot think of how to prove it.

They seem to think that because of the case of Ayannuga v Swindells I will simply hand them a cheque for this money and there is nothing I can do about it.

Does anyone know of any landlords that have been prosecuted for this or shall I file the letter in the bin?

DRP

i reckon they've been reading this forum....

da_rule

My understanding (and I stand to be corrected) is that this is a civil matter, so you will not be prosecuted. They could try and bring a civil case against you, but the judge will look at it on the balance of probabilities. If you have more than one rental property then you could potentially rely on the fact that you have given it to the other tenants, so it would be almost certain that you would have given it to these ones as well (i.e. it forms part of your standard process).

AdrianC

Fourteen months after the deposit return was agreed? Refer 'em to Arkell vs Pressdram, and tell 'em you'll see 'em in court.

pmlindyloo

Malc400 wrote: »

The deposit for my ex tenants who moved in June 2011 was registered correctly in time with an approved scheme and my ex tenants and I agreed the return of the deposit (50/50 split for agreed and provable damage) in January 2013.

I have now just received a letter from them claiming that although I served the prescribed information incorporated into the tenancy agreement and signed it I failed to provide them with the scheme leaflet and am now liable to pay them 3 times the deposit.


It seems that they can try to claim this by denying receiving it. I am sure I did give it to them but cannot think of how to prove it.

They seem to think that because of the case of Ayannuga v Swindells I will simply hand them a cheque for this money and there is nothing I can do about it.

Does anyone know of any landlords that have been prosecuted for this or shall I file the letter in the bin?

According to this:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/797/article/2/made

you do not have to provide the leaflet about the scheme but only the information contained in it.

So you need to see if you did this in your tenancy agreement.

There's another link about the case which I'll find (can't do mutil links - sorry!) which details the exact information that wasn't provided in this case so you can check if you did provide this information.

pmlindyloo

Here you are:

http://blog.tds.gb.com/blog/failing-to-provide-prescribed-information-avoiding-a-costly-penalty/

princeofpounds

In Ayannuga v Swindells there was no argument from the LL that they had served the information properly.

This sounds like a claim that would turn on the balance of probabilities. As an ordinary person, I would say that given you have served the prescribed information and it has been so long since the matter was settled that its' quite probable there were no issues at all, but I don't know exactly how a judge looks at things like that.

anselld

Which scheme is it?

The DPS certainly requires the full T&C to be attached to the PIs.
Note 1 page 4 ... https://www.depositprotection.com/documents/prescribed-information-template.pdf

The full list of things which make up the PI is here...
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/797/pdfs/uksi_20070797_en.pdf
You should be OK if your tenancy agreement contains all these.

thesaint

Tell them that you provided them with the information, and that you will defend any claim they make.

Do not make your response full of legal argument. Keep it simple.

TBagpuss

Judges tend to be quite canny and to spot a chancer when they see one.
As others have said, a civil cases is decided on the balance of probabilities. It sounds as though it is your word against theirs.
Of course, if the information in the agreement included the information which is in the leaflet then you have no problem at all.
It's also worth pointing out that the penalty is *up to* 3 times the deposit.There is no guarantee at all that they would get anything close to the full amount even if they were successful.

theEnd

Their deposit was returned to them over a year ago and now they're trying to claim they didn't get the information and want x3 the deposit.

Tell them to go jump. They are idiots.