Cottage owner withholding security deposit

meer53

23 people spent 3 hours cleaning on the morning you left ? How bad was it ?

rustyboy21

It was quite a large family gathering by the looks of it and must have been a very large house. At the end of the day, she can put in place whatever size deposit against damage as she wants. I have stayed in lots of cottages in the past and can count on 2 fingers the owners that have NOT asked for a security deposit against damage.


I take leaving a property in a general clean state as the following ( some may disagree)
Quick Hoover around.
Beds stripped and all Laundry in a pile ready to clean.
All dishes washed and put away.
Bathrooms, esp toilets cleaned.
Any rubbish removed into bin outside.


Leave the property at 10 am deadline, so cleaners can make up for next rental person.


If she is not happy with the way it was left, then she can deduct any amount she thinks is suitable, if you don't like it, then you have to take action against her. It is not like going on a package holiday and just leaving everything dirty when you leave ( which even I don't do) It annoys me when I walk past just vacant Apartments and there is rubbish piled up by the door, unclean dishes in the sink and Dirty nappies/puke thrown on the floor. Those same people would go mad, if their own houses were left like that.


I think, get the rest of the money back and decide whether you want to pursue it further then. But as said her word against yours and she has your money.

Country_Cousin

We once followed after a hen party in an apartment in Edinburgh. It was a large flat and they had been a large group. I was amazed at the amount of food and rubbish they had left around. The fridge and kitchen were full of all the food they had left behind. And it was just generally messy (not filthy and no breakages). We had arrived early and were told we could leave our bags and that is how we saw all the mess. The cleaners were not at all bothered and seem to take it all their stride. It made me think that maybe I left things too tidy when I left holiday cottages.

mogwai

Thanks - not just her word against ours but we have pictures too showing many areas of the house left in a clean and tidy state. And also she has to justify spending £100 on cleaning which an extra person for 2 hours seems excessive which also suggests she is chancing it - as far as I can tell she can't just deduct an arbitrary amount - she has to show that she has incurred £100 worth of cleaning time/materials??

Meer everyone spent time that morning clearing and cleaning their own bedrooms and bathrooms then came down to help with taking rubbish out, cleaning fridge, hoovering, tidying, and cleaning the kitchen. It was a 12 bed 10 bath house so very big..

hollydays

Several places I have stayed in have also expected all the floors to be mopped and immaculate as found. All tiled surfaces to be clean and shining, toilet cleaned, fridge spotless.

hollydays

Were you offered cleaning after your exit as an extra?

zaax

Stop messing about life is too short.

Letter before action and use money claim online to get your money back + 10% (expenses; time etc.)

ThumbRemote

hollydays wrote: »

Several places I have stayed in have also expected all the floors to be mopped and immaculate as found. All tiled surfaces to be clean and shining, toilet cleaned, fridge spotless.

In which case it should be in the terms and conditions, spelt out as to what is required.

mogwai

hollydays we weren't offered cleaning as extra, but we also weren't provided with any cleaning materials or mops/brushes etc so they can't have expected us to deep clean the house - the contract simply states to leave house in the condition it was found. We believe we did this.

A cleaner was waiting outside for us to leave so they did arrange to have cleaners in - it doesn't make sense to expect us to do the cleaners job and then pay a cleaner to do it after again?

zaax you're right! just wanted to make sure if it went to court we had a chance of winning the case as I don't want to spend more money trying to recover this deposit if the judge is likely to take the cottage owners word over ours.

I have looked into the money claim online website and it seems pretty straightforward so ready to go down that route if necessary though I hope it won't come to that.

thanks all i will update if the situation changes

hollydays

Rate charged is ludicrous I agree. I would expect to buy the cleaning materials myself and a floor cloth and washing up bowl is usually sufficient to clean floors etc but that's just my opinion.