Landlord Wants To Make Deductions from Deposit - Taking the Pee?!

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Claim your deposit back. Now.

hanfrangipane

MentalMinnie wrote: »

No? Is this something I should be doing? The LA has basically said that we should agree to the bath cleaning deduction or the LL will claim for more. Bit of mild blackmail.

If I make my own claim I may rock the boat and cause more problems.

It would seem that you are likely to go into dispute resolution anyway, therefore I wouldn't worry about 'rocking the boat'. You are perfectly entitled to repayment of your deposit (or part threof).

I recently entered dispute through the DPS. Our landlord tried to claim £380/£725 and the DPS reduced this to £80 in our favour. See original thread: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4886337=

The DPS decided in our favour in the end, particularly with cleaning.

In our case, we had invoices for having it cleaned ourself which no doubt counted in our favour. But also, they didn't have a SIGNED copy of the inventory at check in and check out.

They said any decision is based on comparable check in and check out inventory and because our check out inventory was not signed that there was no evidence of our agreement to the state of the flat. Without evidence they cannot rule against you as the service is entirely evidence based.

They also ruled in our favour against some repairs/redecoration as it was classed as betterment and, again, they couldn't evidence that we were at fault.

It sounds like you have a strong case to me - obviously not promising anything but there's nothing rock solid that your LL can claim on here.

the process (for DPS at least) is that one party submits a claim and then the other party accepts or rejects. If you reject then you can enter the amount that you agree to be deducted. We put zero to allow the entire case to be referred.

The only benefit of letting her go first is that any undisputed amounts get distributed immediately. So our LL said she was claiming £380, we disagreed and said zero and that meant that we got the remainder back immediately and only £380 wen't to arbitration. If you apply first and say you want x amount back, the landlord could go on and effectively put the entire balance into dispute, although they would have to then evidence why.

I called the DPS and they were really helpful

Feel free to ask any more questions - but we moved out in Jan, disputed in March and only got our repayment last week. It can be quite long!

SerialRenter

hanfrangipane wrote: »

I recently entered dispute through the DPS. Our landlord tried to claim £380/£725 and the DPS reduced this to £80 in our favour. See original thread: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4886337=

Very glad to hear that it went ok for you in the end.

Would you be able to update your thread with the experience and result.
Simply because we all like to read about the victories that come from help on this forum Also so we can point others towards it and say "look! it does work!".

MentalMinnie

I finally spoke to the letting agent. Despite 4 emails and 3 voicemails, the landlord hasn't come back to him. He's sent her a final email stating that he will release our deposit, less £30 if he hasn't heard from her by 12noon tomorrow. If I don't hear anything by the end of the day tomorrow, I'll start the process of claiming the money back ourselves.

Flippin nigmare!

hanfrangipane

SerialRenter wrote: »

Very glad to hear that it went ok for you in the end.

Would you be able to update your thread with the experience and result.
Simply because we all like to read about the victories that come from help on this forum Also so we can point others towards it and say "look! it does work!".

Hi - yes, I will get it updated. I've been meaning to all week but wanted to do it when I had enough time to give some good pointers and detail on the final report