Rental deposit return

bonnand

Sorry to report this but I have stated several times both verbally and via email that I asked and discussed return of the deposit with the agent. Not once was there any point raised to me about not returning it, made up fees and paying the full term of rent. My only mantra is: if he had been open and honest I would not be discussing this situation at all as I would still be living in the property. I have written evidence that the agent stated the deposit was in a scheme and then he confirmed it had not been registered!

Surely someone who is reputable would speak up from the start of a process and state you may have to pay extra fees or not get money back. It's not a mantra, it's a fact and I now realise I have been dealing with an unscrupulous LL and agent who will lie to rip people off.

theEnd

So the LL definitely said you'd get all the deposit back and the total cost would be £29? Is this in writing/email?

If so, go ahead with the legal option.

bonnand

Yes, we had a meeting and we agreed to cover the cost of the relisting and I then confirmed in an email the discussion as per the request of the agent.

G_M

bonnand wrote: »

Yes, we had a meeting and we agreed to cover the cost of the relisting and I then confirmed in an email the discussion as per the request of the agent.

The court's starting position will be that there was a 6 month contract which you broke.

1) Was anything agreed, in writing, regarding the terms (ie costs) of the LL accepting the Early Surrender?

2) And /or did the LL agree, in writing, that you could surrender the tenancy early, ie on xx date, without penalty or cost?

3) If nothing was agreed in writing, then you'll be arguing to a judge "He said..... " "No I said....."

Your options now are

a) walk away
b) refer the matter to the relevant ombudsman
c) moneyclaimonline

dannim12345

The fees the agent is proposing don't seem exesscive and £30 sounds too low. However I would be annoyed if when asked/agreed I was told it would only be £30 (it that was the case).

I would write back saying none of this was discussed or agreed when agreeing early termination and this would have affected your decision to leave the property.

See what they say and consider going to small claims (if you have evidence to back up what you are saying). I wouldn't just keep going back & forward via email though.

theEnd

bonnand wrote: »

Yes, we had a meeting and we agreed to cover the cost of the relisting and I then confirmed in an email the discussion as per the request of the agent.

But did they say it was £29 total or did they say "cost of relisting"?
If the later, than that's what they've done and doesn't seem unreasonable.

FBaby

*No mention was ever made of this fee and nothing is mentioned in the tenancy agreement*
You seem to be using this argument a lot as a defense. They didn't need to mention everything that would be charged then to have a right to ask for i now. It was YOUR responsibility to ask for a breakdown of costs associating with resigning the contract. The fact that they told you one fee doesn't mean that there were not more applicable, and frankly, if you believed that this would only cost you £30, you were just very naive.

The cost of using a LA to find a tenant runs around £500 for the Landlord. The LA had no reasons not to charge this to the landlord for their normal business and the LL had no reasons, especially considering the fact he was already doing you favour, to pay this fee that resulted from your decision to break the contract.

You seem to have confused 'I will return the deposit' with I will return the full amount of the deposit, it's not the same.

You can take your LL to court but unless he can't prove the charges he is claiming, I think you have very little chances to win. What is surprising with this post is the fact you seem to have very little concept of the fact that you had a lucky escape and could have ended having to pay 5 times that amount and you would have had no defense against that full amount if your landlord had decided to be fully business like. Be grateful!

Miss_Samantha

Either the agreement was to pay 'reasonable costs' or it was to pay a specific amount. Otherwise nothing is payable.

FBaby wrote: »

You seem to have confused 'I will return the deposit' with I will return the full amount of the deposit, it's not the same.

It has to be implied that "I will return the deposit" means the whole amount held. Otherwise the statement is meaningless.

bonnand

Many thanks for the last few posts.

I will admit early on that I realized we would be lucky to get away without paying the remaining rent.

What rankles me is the charges which come out of the woodwork when you move out and I am 99% certain that this scenario would have occurred after the initial 6 months tenancy.

I thought I would include the initial emails when I started this, names have been removed:

First email advising we wanted to move out early:

XXXXXX,

We are writing to advise you that at end of the 6 month fixed tenancy we will be vacating the above referenced property.

Over the last few weeks we have not settled into living in the flat and have realized we have made a mistake. We also have the added complication that XXXXXXX work is changing to focus more on the South East meaning we will need to move to at least XXXXX or XXXXXX.

We are hoping that we can look to locate replacement tenants in the meantime, with your approval of course, who could take over the tenancy from us sooner. This would allow us to move sooner.
Also if you can find new tenants to replace us that would help as well.

We trust you understand our position and if you need to discuss further please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

This is the reply I received fron the LL's agent:

Hi XXXXXX and XXXXXX,

okay what a shame, i will pop round and speak to you and see what we can do and take it from there.

When are you free?

Thanks

Aftert the visit when we discussed our reasons for wanting to move out early, the only costs raised was that to relist the property on "Openrent", I was asked by the the agent to confirm the details of our meeting as follows:

Hi XXXXXXX,

Thanks for popping around last night and discussions we had.

To confirm, due to changes at my work we would need to move out soon as convienent for you. We understand the need to find a tenant to replace us first before we vacate and we would also be willing to carry out viewings with potential tenants.

When you get a moment, please send some details on the properties you mentioned in Exeter area.

Once again, many thanks for your help.


So the agreement was to list the property again which the agent did on the Monday and the listing was live on the following Wednesday morning. Within 3 hours of the listing having gone live, a couple had viewed the property, liked it, agreed to take the tenancy on and our move out date was confirmed as the 31st March and the tenants would move in 1st April. During our further discussions over the next 7 - 10 days approx., no mention was made of the extra fees at all. Do you not think that this should have been raised and we should have been made aware?

A week after we moved out I chased the deposit, and if you go to the start of the posting you will see what happened there!!

I would be willing to accept the return of our deposit less the agents fees, just to close the matter as I don't want to go legal.

This was the last comment from the agent:

Hi XXXXXX,

My response to you was my final response and a full explanation was given, if you are unhappy with my decision then i would suggest for you to instruct your legal source then i will respond to them.

Regards

XXXXXX XXXXXXX

One last question, although we signed both copies of the agreement and initialed them, neither were ever witnessed. Would this have a bearing on anything? Just an aside question.


I would like to say thank you for all your help and advice, it has been gratefully received.

Pixie5740

There is nothing in the emails you have copied and pasted that covers the cost of you surrendering your tenancy early so you have nothing in writing stating the costs for doing so.

You keep saying you don't want to go legal and that you want to avoid court which makes your letter before action a toothless sheep if you are not prepared to take any action.