Late deposit protection of my deposit by my landlady... Small Claims Court?

theartfullodger

Which was extended from the original legislation's 14 days for all those landlords or agents who appeared to have difficulty counting...

Jerome_TFB

G_M wrote: »

However I note you said:
So lets be clear on the facts:

* what date did the tenancy actually start?

18/04

G_M wrote: »

* what date does the tenancy agreement say the tenancy started?

18/04

G_M wrote: »

* what date was the deposit registered?

19/05

G_M wrote: »

* is there any possibility the LL might claim she sent the PI (within the 30 days)?

DPS confirmed that she received the money on the 17/04 (although I do not know how they know it, but that is what is written on the DPS website, I take it as "official". They confirmed that the money was received on 19/05.
Their wording was as follows:
"We can confirm the deposit details were submitted to us on 16/05 and payment was received on 19/05. Therefore the deposit has been protected since the date the payment was received. These details are stored on our records and confirm the date the deposit details were submitted and the date we received payment for the deposit.

Your landlord had advised us that your tenancy start date was 16 May 2015.

All other details are provided by your agent/landlord when the deposit is submitted. For your information, ‘Deposit Paid' is the date the landlord received the deposit monies from the tenant."

They do mention that the LL should send me info from that point, which has never happened. Maybe she could claim she sent the money within the 30 days (I do not know how she paid it), however, as stated the deposit protection starts from the date of receipt of the money, in this case 19/05.

G_M wrote: »

Those are really the key questions which will determine the strength of the case against the LL.

If successfull, it is unlikely the full 3 times deposit will be awarded since
* the deposit was registered, albeit late
* the deposit was returned, albeit following a dispute

I imagine the court would award the minimum penalty - 1 times the deposit, plus costs

I would be happy with 1x the deposit, to be honest.
However, she failed on 2 separate things:
- date of protection
- no info provided.
So it could be more than 1x the deposit.

But to me, it is not a question of money. should I get 1/5 the deposit or whatever, I do not care. It is more about teaching her a lesson, and showing her that she shouldn't mess with people.

Sunshinemummy

Jerome_TFB wrote: »

Not the world. The landlady. Now I asked here to see if someone went through with such a case, but I find myself trying to explain myself to people like you who clearly do not get the point.

theartfullodger said it just right. If there are laws in place, then, let's use it to penalise rogue landlords.

If you feel you are in the right, commence legal proceedings - you do not need to seek confirmation that you are in the right.

Jerome_TFB

Just to add on some of the comments above:

There should be some leniency for landlords

30 days. I do not see what is difficult in this. registering a deposit is a simple matter of
- adding your address and the address of the property
- the start date of the tenancy
- the name of the tenant
- send the money.
If you can't do this withing 30 days, then I am not quite sure what is going on.

As said above the deposit is MY money, and should be protected right away basically. Morally, it shouldn't even reach the LL bank account. But 30 days is enough time to do a bank transfer.

OP's facts

I am asking for help here. I have no interest in telling half truth or whatever. I take going to court as a serious matter and do not approach it lightly.
Beyond the pain it is going to be, I am "attacking" another person, and will affect their life in some way that I cannot measure. I am not here to milk some money out of someone just for the heck of it. I am not a scrounger, and I am just trying to make this person who did generate a great deal of stress for me and my girlfriend for no reason. She tried to keep all of our deposit for no valid reason.
All this pointless delaying in returning my deposit did generate some financial loss on my part, because I had to put down another £3K on another deposit.
So yes, I feel !!!!ed off, and yes I sort of seek revenge. But I want to teach her a lesson, because to me, it just baffling for her to go to such length to be difficult, threatening and plain nasty.
So these are my reasons.
And I would like to think that by dragging her in the mud, I would teach her a lesson, and help new tenants who will have to deal with that horrible woman.

So when it comes to "my" facts, I am basing them on dates that were provided to me by my tenancy agreement and the DPS. I did not pull these out of a hat.
For the info I never received, I have no email from the landlady, and I have received nothing in the post, and she gave me nothing in my hand (despite her monthly "inspections"). Should she have given me papers in my hand, she should have got me to sign a paper stating she did.
But she never sent squat.


My original post was not asking for people opinion or judgement on me or my reasons, or their opinions on tenants suing landlords. I wanted just info from people in the know about this matter. Sadly, only 5% of the answers I got fit this.
So thank you very much for people who provided me with helpful info, and moral support in this matter.

Jerome_TFB

Sunshinemummy wrote: »

If you feel you are in the right, commence legal proceedings - you do not need to seek confirmation that you are in the right.

I have initiated the process by sending my letter before action.
I was just after some people who might have gone through the courts for a deposit protection issue to see how it went for them, and maybe get some templates on what they wrote in the forms.

FBaby

They have 30 days as it is.

What I meant by 'leniency' is if good reasons can be provided as to why the 30 days became 31/32, ie. the agent didn't protect the money, they asked for it to be transferred back to them, and this didn't happen until day 30, hence late. Or, there was a problem with the bank transfer that was the bank's fault, or something similar. I am talking about exceptional circumstances.

Just one comment on you case, as you've stated yourself, how does the DPS know when she received your money because indeed, it doesn't mention anywhere such a date, only start of tenancy and date the deposit is received by DPS.

The issues I have with your intention OP is that you've made it very clear that you are not considering taking her to courts out of legal duties but because you want to seek revenge (you've said you wouldn't have considered it if she hadn't given you grief). So to me, either you are the type of person who align to the law in every aspect of your life (never go over the speed limit for instance) and therefore believe that the same should apply to everyone, or you accept that almost everyone in life sometimes break the law one way of the other, but when no loss has occurred (and in your case, you can't rely on the full return of the deposit for another one, so that is not a loss itself), you let it go, ie. should all those people who go over the speed limit be reported and fined, or only those who annoy you?

FBaby

Then take that up with your MP and leave the OP to do what he is perfectly entitled to do. Surely you can't really feel some personal sense of injustice that the tenant might be given the compensation in this case?

No I'm fine, not concerned at all personally. I just don't like people who abuse a system when they haven't suffered a -real- loss just because they can. It's a moral stand, especially when these are the people who are then often the first to moan when others -landlords- do exactly the same, ie. for instance, promise they are looking for long term tenants to get them in when they know from the start they will want the property back in 6 months at the end of the tenancy. They legally can do it, but morally, I find this appalling.

OP is indeed free to go for it as the law is on his side. It will make him feel better to know that he was able to take revenge as he wishes. I hope for him that karma doesn't come to bite him with a future landlord also using their legal protection to shaft him resulting in much more severe loss than he had done so in this occasion (as in the instance above).

Lemonsqueezer78

Arguably he's exacting "karma", so I'm sure it'll be good. I don't like people who abuse the system either. For example a legal system.... that says you need to put someone's deposit in a scheme, within 30 days. That kind of system. When those systems get abused, I find that "appalling".

anselld

Jerome_TFB wrote: »

My original post was not asking for people opinion

It was actually. It was a Poll asking "Should I take this further?". You just didn't like the majority answer!

Jerome_TFB

FBaby wrote: »

What I meant by 'leniency' is if good reasons can be provided as to why the 30 days became 31/32, ie. the agent didn't protect the money, they asked for it to be transferred back to them, and this didn't happen until day 30, hence late. Or, there was a problem with the bank transfer that was the bank's fault, or something similar. I am talking about exceptional circumstances.

In my case, while the place was rented via an agency, the agent didn't manage the property. It is the LL's duty to deal with this.
In my current rented property, the agency dealt with the deposit protection, and everything was done / info sent within a week after we moved in (all info etc sent).

Whatever you say, 31 or 32 days is not 30. 30 days is plenty of time. And the lawsays "do that within 30 days". If you get stopped on the road with 0.9% alcohol in your blood, you're done. limit's 0.8. law is law. It is written black on white. follow it or take the risk to get punished for it.

FBaby wrote: »

Just one comment on you case, as you've stated yourself, how does the DPS know when she received your money because indeed, it doesn't mention anywhere such a date, only start of tenancy and date the deposit is received by DPS.

When I logged on the DPS page, it does state that the LL received the money on 17th. I assume that in the protection process, the LL must provide the date they received the money, accompanied with a proof (ie bank statement or so).

FBaby wrote: »

The issues I have with your intention OP is that you've made it very clear that you are not considering taking her to courts out of legal duties but because you want to seek revenge (you've said you wouldn't have considered it if she hadn't given you grief).

So what's your view on LL that threaten, abuse, and harass their tenants? is that OK in your books?
Sorry I am not the kind of person to bend and take it. Some people would (maybe you would), but that's their problem. If people can't be arsed suing, fine, no problem. It's their choice. I don't judge them for it.

FBaby wrote: »

So to me, either you are the type of person who align to the law in every aspect of your life (never go over the speed limit for instance) and therefore believe that the same should apply to everyone, or you accept that almost everyone in life sometimes break the law one way of the other, but when no loss has occurred (and in your case, you can't rely on the full return of the deposit for another one, so that is not a loss itself), you let it go, ie. should all those people who go over the speed limit be reported and fined, or only those who annoy you?

I am a rather anal person when it comes to driving...
But I do go over the speed limit at time, guilty as charge. If I am caught doing so, I am not going to complain. I know what I was doing, and I take responsibility for my actions. I am not condoning speeding in any way. I tend not to (and anyway in London speeding is hard too much traffic), but if I do, and get caught, I am not going to deny it and pay the price for it (when I do go over the limit, it is never to crazy amounts so I would go straight to jail, and extra 5 mile /h or so. Still wrong).

I know no one is perfect. I am certainly not. But the LL went out of her way to make my life hell. So I can't feel sorry for her. She did wrong. Full stop.