Deposit Issues/Landlord entering without permission

MrSilk

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Clueless nonsense. Tenants are legally entitled to change the locks. If you've been telling them they cannot you may be guilt of harassment.

From Shelter.
Landlord harassment is an offence

Harassment is action taken by your landlord to deliberately disrupt your life at home or make you leave. Harassment is a criminal offence.
A landlord could be guilty of harassment if they:

• won't let you live in your home in peace
• act in a way that's meant to make you leave your home
• try to take away your legal rights as a tenant

I don't write up AST's, so no; not me who's been telling tenants they cannot change the locks. Not guilty

stator

Sounds like the LL pays the electricity bill for the whole house and has crappy coin meters installed in each flat. This is quite common. It's also quite common for the landlord to charge more for the electricity than he pays. You have a right to know what he pays and you can check the rate on your meter is correct.

As for the locks I am very confused, it sounds like the locks have been changed about 10 times by different people.

Just change them yourselves and keep the keys to yourself. You can buy small motion alarms, I would get one of these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Friedland-Mini-Alarms-ML5-Single/dp/B005IF6YD4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438769110&sr=8-1

jjlandlord

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Clueless nonsense. Tenants are legally entitled to change the locks. If you've been telling them they cannot you may be guilt of harassment.

Tenants are not legally entitled to change locks. They may change locks is their tenancy agreement does not prohibit it.

Telling a tenant that they cannot change the locks is not harassment.
It would be good if people could stop throwing the 'h' word all the time without understanding it.

[Deleted User]

I would definitely be changing the locks if I was renting, and even if you bought a property I would still change them also. You just don't know who has acquired spare keys over the years that could fall into the wrong hands.

audigex

JJlandlord, I think your comment is the wrong way around

Tenants are not legally entitled to change locks. They may change locks is their tenancy agreement does not prohibit it.

While in some ways technically correct, you start with the assumption that it is prohibited. The true situation is kind of the flipped version of this

Tenants are legally entitled to change their locks, unless specifically prohibited by their tenancy agreement

Even then, if you needed to urgently change the locks, it would be a very silly landlord who tried to cause problems for you in such a situation as the lock becoming damaged or compromised and you getting it changed by emergency locksmith

Back to the OP: the fact that as soon as you've raised the issue with the landlord, he is now urgently requiring access to the meter with your consent, very much suggests to me that he has been doing so without permission previously - unless you just reminded him it needed doing. Either way I'd be getting a cheap CCTV camera to monitor access

Pixie5740

MrSilk wrote: »

Calm down guys! - Illegal maybe the wrong word.. Check your AST to see if there is a clause that states tenants cannot change lock without prior permission.

One wrong sentence and you're like a flock of vultures

It's not the only load of Horlicks you wrote though..

MrSilk wrote: »

If the landlord hasn't protected the deposit, you could sue; however they'll only ask him so send you back the ££ and because it's not protected, he'll be unable to make any deductions. Deposit protection is one big con, a money maker for sure.

This is also a steaming pile of horse s!!t. A landlord cannot make deductions just because he/she feels like it. They have to be justified and there has to be evidence they are justified. Deposit protection is to protect tenants against people like you who, despite working in property for 5 years, know hee haw.

jjlandlord

audigex wrote: »

JJlandlord, I think your comment is the wrong way around

No. There is no legal entitlement. If there was, a landlord could not take it away.

audigex wrote: »

While in some ways technically correct, you start with the assumption that it is prohibited.

The absence of a legal entitlement does not imply prohibition.
'in some ways technically correct' does not mean anything.

Pixie5740

OP, what do you want to happen? Do you want to continue living in the property or regardless of what has or hasn't happened do you want to leave at the earliest possible opportunity?

If the landlord is adamant that he, nor someone acting on his behalf, has entered the property it could be possible that someone else has a key, then again the landlord's pants could be on fire.

How about as a way forward you tell your landlord you are concerned about the security of your home. Suggest that you change the barrels in the locks and provide the landlord with a spare set of the new keys. That way only you and he will have access to the property. You could then set up a motion sensor like the one stator suggested and you would find out definitively one way or another.

As for the deposit read the link provided by G_M and check all three deposit schemes to see if it's protected. The link is only relevant if you live in England or Wales though as Scotland and Northern Ireland have different laws surrounding deposit protection.

MrSilk

Pixie5740 wrote: »

It's not the only load of Horlicks you wrote though..



This is also a steaming pile of horse s!!t. A landlord cannot make deductions just because he/she feels like it. They have to be justified and there has to be evidence they are justified. Deposit protection is to protect tenants against people like you who, despite working in property for 5 years, know hee haw.

Where did I say that the landlord can make deductions willy nilly? And. Where did I say they can do so without a copy of a valid signed photographic inventory? - Thanks for reminding me why I don't visit this section of the forum.

agrinnall

MrSilk wrote: »

Calm down guys! - Illegal maybe the wrong word.. Check your AST to see if there is a clause that states tenants cannot change lock without prior permission.

One wrong sentence and you're like a flock of vultures

You're the one who said it was against the law (not in contradiction to the tenancy agreement, an entirely different thing), so you can hardly complain when you're picked up for it.

And by the way, there seem to be a huge variety of collective nouns for groups of vultures (colony, kettle, wake, looming, just to name a few) but flock doesn't appear to be one of them.

http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Pointless/AnimalGroups.html

http://collectivenouns.facts.co/collectivenounsfor/vultures-collectivenounforvultures.php