Dispute over rent payment

oblivion204

I have a tenancy agreement which reads as follows:

A fixed term of 6 months from 21st February 2010, rent £650 per calendar Month payable in advance by equal 6 payments on the day of 25th each month. First payment to be made on 21st Feb 2010.

Now then, I recall paying my landlady on 1st Feb £650 rent and £650 deposit.

Fast forward to now and having paid £650 on Nov 25th 2014 i saw this as the last payment owed as I was moving out beginning of Jan.

Landlady has given me back £500 security deposit to help as I need a new deposit for my new property.

All was well until this morning when she text me asking for Decembers rent?

Several text later she states "When you rented the house you paid a deposit of one month. The first rent came out at the end of the month you stayed there."

I believe she is either getting confused with deposit and rent. I think that she thinks she has given me a full months rent back to assist with my move and called this a deposit. Or she thinks I never paid a deposit in the first place and only one months rent.

Its very confusing...

Besides all the ins and outs of this the agreement in black and white states the first payment is to be paid on 21st Feb 2010, payable in advance.

Whether or not I did pay a deposit neither of us have proof of this 5 years on, well I don't anyway. My mother is looking at her cheque stubs as she paid the cheque for me.

Either way I move on 7th Jan and I'm not sure how to deal with this situation. I'm aware its a civil issue and with my wife being pregnant its stress we/she doesn't need right now.

Any advice is appreciated. I spoke to a solicitor earlier (criminal solicitor) who advised me not to send her the copy of the agreement I have as if she has lost this she will look silly in a court room.

Mallotum_X

If the 1300 was paid on a cheque the. It's worth tracking that down. Get a copy of the bank statement that the cheque came out of, it's worth the small cost to be sure.

provide land lady with details of this payment and let her check. With any luck once she has more details that will be the end of it. I wouldn't get confrontational yet as hopefully it will be cleared up easily.

buglawton

You think: £650 per calendar Month payable in advance
she said:
The first rent came out at the end of the month you stayed there.

So your recollection is you paid in advance of staying.
Hers seems to be that you've been paying in arrears of staying.

Stick to what the contract states, if it says payable in advance then that's what you'll have done.
Might be worth seeing if you can get bank records that far back.

pmlindyloo

In no particular order.

As said, find proof that you paid the one month's rent and the deposit in advance.

If you haven't got proof then the tenancy agreement should show that you were required to pay in advance. Since the solicitor has advised you not to send a copy of the agreement then you could just copy the relevant part to her.

Was your deposit registered in a deposit protection scheme? Again this is proof that a deposit was received.

When did you give notice? It doesn't seem as if you have come to the end of a fixed term. Did you sign any more fixed term agreements after the first one? Or were you on a periodic tenancy (month to month)

From what you have said moving out on the 7 January doesn't tally with notice you should have given. You probably owe rent for this period. We need dates to check.

ACG

Forget what your contract says, get your bank statements out.

Write a list of when every payment and the deposit was due. Then next to that list put the date of when it was paid.

Assuming that stacks up with what you think you have done show her and ask her to check her bank statements. If it doesnt, apologise and make the payment.

PasturesNew

TLDR.... well, I did, but got confused.

oblivion204 wrote: »

... from 21st February 2010, rent £650 per calendar Month payable in advance by equal 6 payments on the day of 25th each month. First payment to be made on 21st Feb 2010.

Now then, I recall paying my landlady on 1st Feb £650 rent and £650 deposit.

Fast forward to now and having paid £650 on Nov 25th 2014

.... she text me asking for Decembers rent?

... I move on 7th Jan

I've ignored the deposit item for now as that seems straight forward that she's managed to short-change you by £150 on that.

Did you pay on 1st February, in advance of your start date of 21 February 2010? If so, that'd be rent 21 Feb - 20 Mar.

If the last rent you paid was 21 November, then this pays for 21 November to 20 December.

You appear, under this thinking, to be short of at least the rent from 21 December until 7 January (and maybe, contract depending, 21 December to 20 January).

oblivion204

Ok hopefully this will clear some things up.

I initially had a call to say she was thinking of selling. I found another property and told her I would looking to move in there asap. She asked me for a months notice which I gave initially by telephone and further in writing on 20th November 2014.

On 21st November a for sale sign went up with no warning from her so I could argue I had not received the standard 2 months notice myself. It was the estate agent that pointed this out to me by the way.

She signed a letter she typed up (and I did) to state that she was returning my deposit of £500 and the balance owing was £85 to take me to 7th Jan 2015. She worked out the figures rightly or wrongly and as far as I was concerned all was well.

We have spoken to our branch who cant help us until after BH.
As I see it if I can prove payment left our account to hers on 21st Feb then we are square.
If payment left our account in March then she blatantly used my cheque to cover the first months rent.

Besides the above if she feels she is right then why on earth give me £500 deposit back? It would have made more sense to just say dont pay me rent for dec.

Like above, I have the tenancy agreement which says first payment is 21st Feb and an additional letter from her to say the balance owed is now £85. Nothing I can do until after BH but the last thing I will do is give her £650 for nothing

oblivion204

as for the holding deposit this was 2010 and not required by law

fairy_lights

oblivion204 wrote: »

as for the holding deposit this was 2010 and not required by law

I'm not sure what you mean by this, in 2010 it was law that deposits be protected, are you saying this didn't happen?

oblivion204

I read today that its pre Apr2013, this could be wrong Im not sure about deposits being held

Pixie5740

Are you in Scotland?