Help & Advice - Deposit Return Query

steve2005

Wasn't expecting so much abuse, wow

Pixie5740

!!!!!!?! If I were your tenant I'd be using the deposit scheme to challenge that nonsense. It's not the tenant's fault you were too tight to pay for a Royal Mail Redirection service. Nor was it the tenant's fault you failed to notify the DVLA.

journeymanpro

Good luck with that. Ridiculous thing to charge for and I hope thru stand up for themselves.

benjus

You must keep the DVLA informed of your current address. It is against the law to fail to do so. The £600 that you now owe is a consequence of failing to do this. You can't hold the tenant responsible for this, even if you had a watertight agreement requiring him/her to forward your post.

Just pay the tenant the remainder of the deposit and learn from your experience - next time make sure you notify the DVLA as required and use Royal Mail's redirection service for your post.

steve2005

Guys, just to confirm, I did notfiy DVLA but it appears they did not receive my V5. In all the chaos of last year we didn't notice that a new V5 had not arrived.

I also did pay for Royal Mail redirection for 6 months, this occured after that period.

I'd also like to add that I am NOT charging for any of the items that flagged up on the checkout inventory, like doors coming off hinges, paint on furniture and scratches to wooden floor.

G_M

You are charging for your losses resulting from the tenants' failure to forward/hand over post?

I'm initially tempted to click: :rotfl:


But more appropriate is: :eek:

Get real!

Pixie5740

steve2005 wrote: »

Guys, just to confirm, I did notfiy DVLA but it appears they did not receive my V5. In all the chaos of last year we didn't notice that a new V5 had not arrived.

I also did pay for Royal Mail redirection for 6 months, this occured after that period.

So, you should have renewed it when your 6 months was up. Tenants do not have any responsibility to forward post on.

steve2005 wrote: »

I'd also like to add that I am NOT charging for any of the items that flagged up on the checkout inventory, like doors coming off hinges, paint on furniture and scratches to wooden floor.

Why not? If the items you've just mentioned are damage then you can legitimately claim the money from the deposit whereas you cannot claim £600 for your eff up with the DVLA.

Pixie5740

steve2005 wrote: »

Wasn't expecting so much abuse, wow

Abuse? Even G_M who regularly advocates reasonable discussion along with tea and cake thinks you're at it.

Edited to add the OP. Nothing stays hidden once it's on the Internet.

Hi all

Long story short, I moved out of my property last July when I bought somewhere new. We used an agency and got tenants in.

In august my mother had a stroke, followed by a second stroke 3 days later. In September she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. In October she was also diagnosed with a form of cancer.
In December that diagnosis became terminal cancer. In January she became paralysed from the waist down. In March she passed away.

However, during all the stress of flying back and forth from the UK it appears we failed to notify the DVLA of our new address.

During this time I recieved, in the post, a PCN. Hands up, totally my fault. Baby was choking in back seat so I stopped as soon as possible to help with blockage.

There was an agreement in place, confirmed by email, that our tenants would hand over any post that came for us. They did this a few times then stopped.

On at least 3 occassions my agent visited the tenants, but on all of these occassions the tentants did not hand over any post.

The PCN has now gone from the original £65 (50% discount) to over £600, as we were completely unaware of it.

The tentants had also opened at least one letter, with details of the PCN, but placed it with all the other post and failed to notify either myself or the agency.

I was just wondering where things stood with depost return? I have (via my agent) authorised the return of the deposit, minus the fee for the unpaid PCN.

Any advice or comments appreciated.

Marvel1

I wish people who want to be landlords know what they can and cannot do etc :mad:

You are claiming what can only be described as silly(I'm being nice) and not claiming for what the deposit is really for :doh:

In regards to the PCN pop over to Motoring > Private Parking Tickets, they may be able to help.

Kynthia

Claim for things they damaged. However unless it was in the contract that thry would handover or forward post within a specified time frame then I doubt you could claim your losses dye to them not doing so. I'm not even sure whether having it correctly worded in the contract would help if they disputed it as tge deposit scheme may decide it's unenforceable or require you to provide proof they didn't comply at a higher standard than you're able to provide.

GipsyHillClimber

Wow, i join others in this thread in agreeing that to withhold any amount of the deposit because you didn't change your address with the DVLA and then went on to stop in a no stopping zone or speed or whatever you did is ridiculous. You made a mistake, just take ownership of it and move on.

People like you are why there needs to be better regulation of landlords, but thank goodness for the TDS as hopefully when the tenant challenges they will put you in your place.