Deposit Refund and CCJ

TBagpuss

What stage are you up to with the county court proceedings? If you have actually got a CCJ (a JUDGEMENT) then you are entitled to be paid the amount the Judge determined.

If you have simply issued proceedings then they are entitled to file a defence, and can either admit they owe you full sum, admit they owe you part of it but dispute the rest,or dispute the whole amount.

If you and they come to an agreement then it would be reasonable for you to withdraw your claim.

As others have said, the amounts that they are charging you are not inherently unreasonable, for the work that needs doing.

The only one open to dispute would be the carpet clean, if your say that the carpet did not require cleaning. But the others are reasonable.

(Hopefully, you won't ever be in a similar situation, but if you were, you could ask the police to go with you to remove personal belonging and return keys)

Whether or not the landlords *actually * pay someone to remove the items or clean the carpet is up to them.

dpending on the timescales and how many times you had requested information from them about where your deposit was being held, it might be reasonable for you to offer a compromise whereby you agree to accept their deductions on the basis that they agree to repay the balance of the deposit plus the court issue fee you have paid, on the basis that you would not have had to issue an application if they had provided the deposit details in a timely way.

Obviously you are free to wait to see whether they file any defence, and to seek judgment in default if they don't, and you may get lucky if they are disorganised and fail to do so within the necessary time limits, but the deductions they are making are reasonable and the amounts are not excessive, so if they do file a defence disputing the amount due to you I think they are likely to succeed

notgoodatmaths

Geoff1963 wrote: »

You must know the story of the chap who goes into a pet shop, with a long list :
4 rats, 100 spiders, 50 cockroaches and 30 slugs
When the owner asks why he wants so many items, he explains that he is moving out of his rented flat and has to leave it as he found it.

Haha, that made me laugh

notgoodatmaths

Cakeguts wrote: »

From the point of view of your landlord you are an irresponsible tenant. Your personal problems are not anything to do with your landlord it is none of their business how you run your life or what life throws at you. The lettings agent and the landlord are not interested in your personal life or your problems what they are interested in is how you have left the property. Taking out your personal problems you left the property without giving notice. You left items in the property, you didn't clean it and you didn't hand the keys back. This is what you are being charged for. You seem to think that the landlord/letting agent has to take into account your personal problems. Your personal problems are nothing to do with them.

What the previous tenants did or not do is also none of your business and what the landlord does or not do with the items you left behind is also none of your business.

You are liable for what you didn't do when you left the property. The charges that they have come up with are reasonable. You don't get special treatment because of your circumstances.

I did give them one month's notice. I just couldn't remove the items as the last 2 days in that property were hell. I couldn't even sleep due to the personal situation which I was facing. Anyway thanks for your input.

notgoodatmaths

G_M wrote: »

and to clarify the point you make about whether the LL/agent actually removed your items or not, actually cleaned or not, and whether they have invoices:

They do not have to do any of those things: they are charging you for the value of the consequences of your actions.

As an analogy: Say I'm driving my car, and someone crashes into the back of me, causing a dent. It is their fault. I'm entitled to claim a fair amount for the damage, so I get 2 quotes from garages, say £100 and £120. The other driver pays me £100 (he does not want to lose his no claims bonus, or pay the excess, so ignores insurance).

Do I have to show him an actual receipt for the repair? No.
Do I have to get the dent repaired? No.

I can spend the £100 on a slap-up night out, and drive around in a dented car.

The £100 is compensation for now having a dented car - it is NOT dependant on me deciding to actually have the car repaired.

Thanks for clarifying. It actually makes sense now. I thought lettings agencies and landlords would respect the new tenant's right to a clean and tidy place so they would actually spend the money that they have acquired from the previous tenant's deposit to make that happen but reading comments on here have realised that's not how the world works. I am just too naive:mad:

FBaby

It does work like this sometimes, or other times, they might rent as is but lowering the future rent, or not increasing to rental market.

Different LL will do different things, but all have one thing in common, they don't have to justify what they do with the money.

notgoodatmaths

TBagpuss wrote: »

What stage are you up to with the county court proceedings? If you have actually got a CCJ (a JUDGEMENT) then you are entitled to be paid the amount the Judge determined.

If you have simply issued proceedings then they are entitled to file a defence, and can either admit they owe you full sum, admit they owe you part of it but dispute the rest,or dispute the whole amount.

If you and they come to an agreement then it would be reasonable for you to withdraw your claim.

As others have said, the amounts that they are charging you are not inherently unreasonable, for the work that needs doing.

The only one open to dispute would be the carpet clean, if your say that the carpet did not require cleaning. But the others are reasonable.

(Hopefully, you won't ever be in a similar situation, but if you were, you could ask the police to go with you to remove personal belonging and return keys)

Whether or not the landlords *actually * pay someone to remove the items or clean the carpet is up to them.

dpending on the timescales and how many times you had requested information from them about where your deposit was being held, it might be reasonable for you to offer a compromise whereby you agree to accept their deductions on the basis that they agree to repay the balance of the deposit plus the court issue fee you have paid, on the basis that you would not have had to issue an application if they had provided the deposit details in a timely way.

Obviously you are free to wait to see whether they file any defence, and to seek judgment in default if they don't, and you may get lucky if they are disorganised and fail to do so within the necessary time limits, but the deductions they are making are reasonable and the amounts are not excessive, so if they do file a defence disputing the amount due to you I think they are likely to succeed

Thank you for not judging me and actually giving some advice. It is at the CCJ stage. They were trying to fob me off regarding the deposit issue. I had been chasing them for 4 months and had no luck. DPS couldn't find me on their records so couldn't help me. So I had to go to the court. I have emailed them back that I would accept the £197 plus £58 as the carpets didn't really need a deep clean just a vacuum clean. And they have agreed to that. I am waiting to get the money in my bank then I will cancel the CCJ.

notgoodatmaths

Cakeguts wrote: »

From the point of view of your landlord you are an irresponsible tenant. Your personal problems are not anything to do with your landlord it is none of their business how you run your life or what life throws at you. The lettings agent and the landlord are not interested in your personal life or your problems what they are interested in is how you have left the property. Taking out your personal problems you left the property without giving notice. You left items in the property, you didn't clean it and you didn't hand the keys back. This is what you are being charged for. You seem to think that the landlord/letting agent has to take into account your personal problems. Your personal problems are nothing to do with them.

What the previous tenants did or not do is also none of your business and what the landlord does or not do with the items you left behind is also none of your business.

You are liable for what you didn't do when you left the property. The charges that they have come up with are reasonable. You don't get special treatment because of your circumstances.

I am not asking for any special treatment based on my circumstances. I mentioned it just to give you guys a background before everyone started asking me why I did this or that.

notgoodatmaths

I am already suffering from depression and just needed some advice. I believed the rules of the forum were to offer advice and to not judge but it seemed like I was being judged by the tone of some comments. Anyway thanks for putting your input. I have emailed the lettings agency back and I will accept £197 plus £58.

Cakeguts

notgoodatmaths wrote: »

I am already suffering from depression and just needed some advice. I believed the rules of the forum were to offer advice and to not judge but it seemed like I was being judged by the tone of some comments. Anyway thanks for putting your input. I have emailed the lettings agency back and I will accept £197 plus £58.

You have done it again. You have mentioned a medical illness. The point about this is that people can only give you advice based on what you say you have done when you left this property. The fact that some of them may have written something that you don't like doesn't mean that they are judging you.

I am sorry you have got depression. I know that it isn't at all pleasant. However this still has nothing to do with your question about the return of your deposit.

Guest101

notgoodatmaths wrote: »

I am already suffering from depression and just needed some advice. I believed the rules of the forum were to offer advice and to not judge but it seemed like I was being judged by the tone of some comments. Anyway thanks for putting your input. I have emailed the lettings agency back and I will accept £197 plus £58.

Let's say this wasn't a deposit, but a car crash. You caused an accident.


Would you say it's not my fault because I was depressed?


No-one is judging the illness. But the illness is not a get out of jail free card either.