Deposit deduction

mell1

Hi, some much needed advice wanted. We have recently moved out of our rented property. We cleaned the place top to bottom and repainted every room.
I took photographs (193 of them) and also made sure they corresponded to the ones in the check in report nearly 3 years earlier.
LL came and looked over the place and said he was very pleased and thanked us for leaving it in such good condition. Other than this no check out report was done. He confirmed he would not be with holding any of the deposit.
After we handed the keys back he moved in with his two children and stayed there for the next 9 days. Today i find out that he has decided to with hold some of the deposit due to human excrement being smeared on the underneath of the toilet. I asked him why he hadn't mentioned it before and he said you had to virtually lie underneath the toilet to see it.

I strongly deny that it has anything to do with us as i even cleaned around all the toilet and seat fitting with a toothbrush!! i reminded him that he and his children had been living in the property for 9 days previously to the revelation.

I do have photographs of the toilet concerned but i will admit i didn't lie on the floor to take photos from underneath!

but the question i need help with is, from what i can gather is the LL has 14 days in which to raise a dispute ( we put our repayment request in 9 days ago) is this right or is there no time limit.

Many thanks for reading

anselld

The deposit scheme arbitrator will not entertain a checkout condition conducted after 9 days of someone else living there. Claim the full deposit via the scheme immediately.

HappyMJ

How much is he claiming anyway? A bit of bleach 10 pence... I wouldn't admit anything but that's all he should be claiming and it isn't worth claiming.

mell1

anselld wrote: »

The deposit scheme arbitrator will not entertain a checkout condition conducted after 9 days of someone else living there. Claim the full deposit via the scheme immediately.

thank you, we put our repayment request in 9 days ago for the full amount. how long does he have to lodge a dispute? in actual fact to complicate things the DPS are having to correspond with the letting agent even though she went out of business a couple of years ago although we were never told!

anselld

mell1 wrote: »

thank you, we put our repayment request in 9 days ago for the full amount. how long does he have to lodge a dispute? in actual fact to complicate things the DPS are having to correspond with the letting agent even though she went out of business a couple of years ago although we were never told!

It is a tediously slow process. If there is agent or LL fail to respond in a timely manner you will need to start the "single claim" process. The timescales are all described on the DPS website.

mell1

HappyMJ wrote: »

How much is he claiming anyway? A bit of bleach 10 pence... I wouldn't admit anything but that's all he should be claiming and it isn't worth claiming.

thats what i thought! I obviously said it wasn't us that made the mess, if it was that hard to see it could have been there years. He said if we thought that he would see about getting DNA from us.........I can laugh about it now but it wasn't funny at the time. He hasn't said how much he wants to reclaim, but he said cleaners will need to wear specialised equipment so will be expensive.

anselld

mell1 wrote: »

thats what i thought! I obviously said it wasn't us that made the mess, if it was that hard to see it could have been there years. He said if we thought that he would see about getting DNA from us.........I can laugh about it now but it wasn't funny at the time. He hasn't said how much he wants to reclaim, but he said cleaners will need to wear specialised equipment so will be expensive.

:rotfl::rotfl: Nutter! Since when were rubber gloves "specialised equipment".

mell1

Well after 11 days the LL has contacted the DPS and our deposit is in dispute.

When i log into the site it says under Deposit status "disputed claim" i expected it to say how much he was disputing.

Do we find this out when we get the paperwork or before? he certainly won't tell me.

Many thanks, never done this before

Elfbert

That is ridiculous. Sorry you're going through this, Mell1!

Hopefully the DPS will throw the claim out soon, whilst laughing at the LL!

(Fwiw, poo is rubbish for DNA! A friend of mine is a SOCO and deals with more poo than you'd think at crime scenes, says it's useless for them to get any info from.)

Good luck to you.

mell1

Elfbert wrote: »

That is ridiculous. Sorry you're going through this, Mell1!

Hopefully the DPS will throw the claim out soon, whilst laughing at the LL!

(Fwiw, poo is rubbish for DNA! A friend of mine is a SOCO and deals with more poo than you'd think at crime scenes, says it's useless for them to get any info from.)

Good luck to you.

Thank you so much, i have found out from the DPS that he is disputing the whole amount, £825.00. In addition to cleaning the toilet he is saying we changed a thermostat on one of the radiators (not sure what they are called, the knob at the side with the numbers on) but he can't tell which one, so is changing them all!! we never touched them, in fact we didn't have a gas saftety certificate so didn't have the central heating on as the boiler kept cutting out!
He re let the house out within 4 days so it couldn't have been that dirty, he even said the decorating was to such a high standard my hubby should take it up as a job! Total madness!!:mad:

mell1

Return of FULL deposit !!!!!

to anyone else out there going through hell with their landlord trying to get a deposit repaid, don't be bullied! :j