Landlord Dispute - Tenancy Deposit

G_M

'Fair and reasonable' is what your landlord has offered you. A full return of the deposit you paid him, with no further dispute over deductions for the damage which may or may not have occurred.

You will thus not be out of pocket in any way.

Asking for an additional amount from your landlord is simply money-grubbing and greedily hoping to make a bit extra free cash.

This is a moneysaving website forum, not a moneymaking forum, and certainly not a forum to encourage exploitative moneymaking.

saajan_12

Deposit: You are correct that failure to serve PI does kick off the 1-3x deposit penalty, but it is at the very low end of the scale in infractions of s.214 so is likely to result in a 1x penalty. However as the LL/LA has offered a settlement that would leave you not out of pocket and you are claiming much more than what (I think) the court might find reasonable, you may not be awarded full costs. Also by refusing to settle for full deposit, the LL/LA can claim damages – they may have other proof such as an inventory before you moved in or receipts when things were purchased new. You say the claim of damages is unfounded, but you only mention the false claims regarding texts back and forth, not the actual damages. There is always a risk at court.

Late fees: If these are mandated in the agreement, the LL / LA can claim them upto 6 years later unless they explicitly altered the contract and said they wouldn’t be due. Not claiming them early enough or choosing to give you a pass is not sufficient. You are in arrears the day after rent is due, even if just a couple of days late.

You can of course pursue the 1-3x deposit penalty in court – beware you MAY be hit with damage costs, court costs and late fees deducted which MAY leave you worse off than the full deposit return settlement, before you even get to the hassle and time cost.

ThePants999

I would recommend that you settle for (a) the full return of deposit and (b) an agreement that this is full settlement of anything with respect to the tenancy, i.e. they can't later claim for damages or late fees.

TBagpuss

Check your tenancy agreement. Does it say anything about interest on late fees.

(Also, I suspect that the 8% comes from the fact that tat is the current County Court Judgement rate - it is 8% per year. So for instacne if your rent was £800 month and you were 10 days late the daily interest she might be able to claim would be (£800 x 0.08) / 365 = £0.175, x 10 (the days late) = £17.53.
So if you were only ever a few days late, unless your rent was very high, it's likely that any sums involved would be pretty small.

That said, I would follow the advice above and make sure that you explicitly confirm, and get it in writing, that if you accept the full deposit back it is in full and final settlement of anything you owe them, or they owe you.