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Deposit Success Story
hellsbells65
Posts: 3 Newbie
Hi everyone, newbie here!
I wanted to share my recent success story with regards to a deposit dispute, for anybody out there who is struggling to deal with a difficult situation. I will try to make this as clear as I can.
We signed up to a 12-month tenancy agreement, in a 4-bed house, as a group of 5 full-time employed adults in our mid-late 20s. Our deposit was £3,037.50. I was lead tenant.
Throughout the tenancy, all contact was made through the letting agency rather than the landlord. I made sure to keep everything in writing, as there had been some incidents which made me question how much I trusted these people (i.e. discrepancies on various reports, finance errors, house viewings taking place without 24hrs notice, and entering the property without consent).
Around 11 months in, we were asked if we could vacate early, as the landlord had found new tenants who wanted to move in ASAP. We agreed and the check-out was booked. There were several things we agreed that we would contribute to:
Cleaning
We arranged a professional clean of the property once we moved out, as it was agreed in our contract. The chosen company did an extremely poor job, and caused some additional stains (it was so bad, that I spent weeks fighting with them to get some money back, threatening court action). This poor cleaning job meant that there were still finger marks / spills / stains on walls, dusty areas and stains on carpets – the property looked worse than it would have done had these been cleaned properly.
At check-out, I informed the clerk of this and stated we would happily contribute towards a further clean.
Garden
As agreed in our contract, we arranged a professional gardener to tend to the back and front gardens, however we had left an approximately 4-5ft bald patch from where we had a pool in the summer. We took responsibility of this and agreed to cover the cost of replacement turf to remedy this.
Re-decoration
There were some additional chips and scratches to various walls throughout the house, and a couple of additional scratches to the wooden flooring from where we moved in and out. We knew we would be liable to contribute towards these, and were happy to do so.
___________________________________________________
The Check-out
I was present on the day of the check-out, however as I was on-call with work, I could not walk around with the clerk for the entire time. I missed the majority of the upstairs inspection.
None of the electricity was working downstairs when I arrived for the check-out, meaning it could not be tested. It turned out that the immersion heater had tripped the electrics, and this was resolved after the check-out was completed and I had left the property.
When the check-out was complete I was told that I would receive copies of the report, and would hear from the letting agents soon with details of the landlord’s deductions.
___________________________________________________
The Landlord’s Proposal
Nearly 6 weeks after the check-out took place, we received invoices relating to various works throughout the property, and a spreadsheet detailing what we were being charged for against specific lines in the check-out report. The proposed deposit deductions were as follows:
- £150 towards another professional clean
- £687 towards cleaning all wooden and tiled flooring downstairs
- £705 towards replacing light bulbs (which had blown following the immersion heater trip mentioned before), replacement light fitting, replacement lamp shade, and fixing the bald patch in the garden
- £770 towards replacement carpet (on stairs, landing and all 4 bedrooms)
- £6,080 towards re-decorating every wall in the house
Total: £8,387
(£5,349.50 over the amount we paid for our deposit – the invoices totalled over £12k, meaning the landlord would pick up approx. £3k of the overall cost)
What. The. Hell.
I spent nearly 2 weeks going through every report and invoice with a fine-tooth comb to try and understand how on earth we were liable to pay that amount of money. Some of the invoices were also very vague, which made it difficult to understand exactly how the charges were broken down.
I found that in the check-out report, there were a lot of discrepancies which proved that the house was not spotless before we moved in. For example, where the clerk had written that there were scuffs and marks caused by us on a specific wall, what she had failed to do was refer to other lines nearby on the report which stated that, at check-in, there were multiple marks already present in the same area. This was apparent for the majority of lines we were being charged for, including stains on carpets that were already there, and grouting that required cleaning before we moved in. I’m still unsure whether this was accidental, or deliberate in the landlord’s favour...
It is also worth noting that the landlord refused to send us pictures of all the work that was done in the house.
___________________________________________________
Tenants’ Proposal
After a lot of stress, worry, tears, research and deliberation, I pulled together the following proposal as a response to the letting agency:
- £150 towards another professional clean
I sent the proposal and offered to go through the DPS’ Adjudication Service to resolve the matter. As expected, the landlord refused our proposal, but then proceeded to ignore the situation for over 3 months. I would exchange emails with the letting agency and always be told that they had received no response from him.
Eventually, I received an email that the landlord would like to propose that we surrender the whole deposit, and he would write off the additional £5k.
Nope, not having it.
___________________________________________________
The DPS
The landlord agreed to go through the DPS, and his full claim was submitted to their website. We responded with our reasoning regarding why we were not releasing any funds at this stage, and this prompted both parties to submit evidence to support the request.
Within the timescale, I sent the DPS a very lengthy email with over 20 attachments, consisting of reports, zip files of pictures taken at check-in and check-out, and everything else I felt was necessary in supporting our case.
And then we waited.
It took over a month for the DPS to get back to us with a decision, but it was well worth the wait. We were sent an 11-page document from the adjudicator, which was extremely detailed, easy to understand, and above all else, reasonable. There were many areas where the adjudicator conceded that the proposals provided by the landlord were excessive, and not justified – I was also interested to see that there were some points where the adjudicator took my proposals to be reasonable.
The verdict was as follows:
- £150 towards another professional clean
- Nothing awarded to the landlord towards cleaning all wooden and tiled flooring downstairs
We have now received money back from our deposit, and have released £1,639 to the landlord. Even though he has the larger amount, I feel we have won.
For anybody who is facing a similar situation, I hope my story offers a glimmer of hope in this extremely stressful time. Make full use of your deposit scheme’s adjudication system if you can – I was sceptical at first, but I firmly believe they are fair, reasonable and unbiased.
Ensure you take lots of pictures, and add timestamps so you can clearly see the dates they were taken. Communicate only via email, not over the phone. Always be vigilant, but remain professional and reasonable.
Please feel free to comment with your experiences and I would be happy to offer advice where I can. Good luck!
I wanted to share my recent success story with regards to a deposit dispute, for anybody out there who is struggling to deal with a difficult situation. I will try to make this as clear as I can.
We signed up to a 12-month tenancy agreement, in a 4-bed house, as a group of 5 full-time employed adults in our mid-late 20s. Our deposit was £3,037.50. I was lead tenant.
Throughout the tenancy, all contact was made through the letting agency rather than the landlord. I made sure to keep everything in writing, as there had been some incidents which made me question how much I trusted these people (i.e. discrepancies on various reports, finance errors, house viewings taking place without 24hrs notice, and entering the property without consent).
Around 11 months in, we were asked if we could vacate early, as the landlord had found new tenants who wanted to move in ASAP. We agreed and the check-out was booked. There were several things we agreed that we would contribute to:
Cleaning
We arranged a professional clean of the property once we moved out, as it was agreed in our contract. The chosen company did an extremely poor job, and caused some additional stains (it was so bad, that I spent weeks fighting with them to get some money back, threatening court action). This poor cleaning job meant that there were still finger marks / spills / stains on walls, dusty areas and stains on carpets – the property looked worse than it would have done had these been cleaned properly.
At check-out, I informed the clerk of this and stated we would happily contribute towards a further clean.
Garden
As agreed in our contract, we arranged a professional gardener to tend to the back and front gardens, however we had left an approximately 4-5ft bald patch from where we had a pool in the summer. We took responsibility of this and agreed to cover the cost of replacement turf to remedy this.
Re-decoration
There were some additional chips and scratches to various walls throughout the house, and a couple of additional scratches to the wooden flooring from where we moved in and out. We knew we would be liable to contribute towards these, and were happy to do so.
___________________________________________________
The Check-out
I was present on the day of the check-out, however as I was on-call with work, I could not walk around with the clerk for the entire time. I missed the majority of the upstairs inspection.
None of the electricity was working downstairs when I arrived for the check-out, meaning it could not be tested. It turned out that the immersion heater had tripped the electrics, and this was resolved after the check-out was completed and I had left the property.
When the check-out was complete I was told that I would receive copies of the report, and would hear from the letting agents soon with details of the landlord’s deductions.
___________________________________________________
The Landlord’s Proposal
Nearly 6 weeks after the check-out took place, we received invoices relating to various works throughout the property, and a spreadsheet detailing what we were being charged for against specific lines in the check-out report. The proposed deposit deductions were as follows:
- £150 towards another professional clean
- £687 towards cleaning all wooden and tiled flooring downstairs
- £705 towards replacing light bulbs (which had blown following the immersion heater trip mentioned before), replacement light fitting, replacement lamp shade, and fixing the bald patch in the garden
- £770 towards replacement carpet (on stairs, landing and all 4 bedrooms)
- £6,080 towards re-decorating every wall in the house
Total: £8,387
(£5,349.50 over the amount we paid for our deposit – the invoices totalled over £12k, meaning the landlord would pick up approx. £3k of the overall cost)
What. The. Hell.
I spent nearly 2 weeks going through every report and invoice with a fine-tooth comb to try and understand how on earth we were liable to pay that amount of money. Some of the invoices were also very vague, which made it difficult to understand exactly how the charges were broken down.
I found that in the check-out report, there were a lot of discrepancies which proved that the house was not spotless before we moved in. For example, where the clerk had written that there were scuffs and marks caused by us on a specific wall, what she had failed to do was refer to other lines nearby on the report which stated that, at check-in, there were multiple marks already present in the same area. This was apparent for the majority of lines we were being charged for, including stains on carpets that were already there, and grouting that required cleaning before we moved in. I’m still unsure whether this was accidental, or deliberate in the landlord’s favour...
It is also worth noting that the landlord refused to send us pictures of all the work that was done in the house.
___________________________________________________
Tenants’ Proposal
After a lot of stress, worry, tears, research and deliberation, I pulled together the following proposal as a response to the letting agency:
- £150 towards another professional clean
- In agreement with the landlord’s proposed deduction
- £100 towards cleaning all wooden and tiled flooring downstairs
- We had caused 2 additional scratches to the wooden floors
- £70 towards replacement turf for the bald patch in the garden
- I refused to pay for replacement lightbulbs which were blown as a result of the immersion heater, as this was the landlord’s responsibility
- No evidence of a broken lampshade or broken light fitting
- £100 towards replacement carpet
- We (and the awful cleaning company we used) caused 2 additional stains to one of the carpets, and the rest was there before we moved in
- £1000 towards re-decoration
- The walls weren’t newly painted when we moved in and there were countless notes in the check-in report that proved how scuffed up they were. Regardless, we did add to this and agreed that some needed to be painted over
I sent the proposal and offered to go through the DPS’ Adjudication Service to resolve the matter. As expected, the landlord refused our proposal, but then proceeded to ignore the situation for over 3 months. I would exchange emails with the letting agency and always be told that they had received no response from him.
Eventually, I received an email that the landlord would like to propose that we surrender the whole deposit, and he would write off the additional £5k.
Nope, not having it.
___________________________________________________
The DPS
The landlord agreed to go through the DPS, and his full claim was submitted to their website. We responded with our reasoning regarding why we were not releasing any funds at this stage, and this prompted both parties to submit evidence to support the request.
Within the timescale, I sent the DPS a very lengthy email with over 20 attachments, consisting of reports, zip files of pictures taken at check-in and check-out, and everything else I felt was necessary in supporting our case.
And then we waited.
It took over a month for the DPS to get back to us with a decision, but it was well worth the wait. We were sent an 11-page document from the adjudicator, which was extremely detailed, easy to understand, and above all else, reasonable. There were many areas where the adjudicator conceded that the proposals provided by the landlord were excessive, and not justified – I was also interested to see that there were some points where the adjudicator took my proposals to be reasonable.
The verdict was as follows:
- £150 towards another professional clean
- Nothing awarded to the landlord towards cleaning all wooden and tiled flooring downstairs
- The grouting was regarded as age-related discolouration (fair wear and tear)
- The adjudicator believed the wooden floors did not require specialist cleaning / sanding
- £389 towards replacement turf and light fitting
- The light fitting, although I did not agree that we damaged this, made up only £75 of this total, so I chose not to argue
- £100 towards replacement carpet
- The carpets were not new, and therefore the proposed sum was deemed as excessive based on the damage and wear already present when we moved in
- £1000 towards re-decoration
- The adjudicator stated that the photos provided showed the alleged issues to be far less severe than the check-out report had noted
___________________________________________________We have now received money back from our deposit, and have released £1,639 to the landlord. Even though he has the larger amount, I feel we have won.
For anybody who is facing a similar situation, I hope my story offers a glimmer of hope in this extremely stressful time. Make full use of your deposit scheme’s adjudication system if you can – I was sceptical at first, but I firmly believe they are fair, reasonable and unbiased.
Ensure you take lots of pictures, and add timestamps so you can clearly see the dates they were taken. Communicate only via email, not over the phone. Always be vigilant, but remain professional and reasonable.
Please feel free to comment with your experiences and I would be happy to offer advice where I can. Good luck!
0
Comments
-
I!!!8217;d hardly say you !!!8216;won!!!8217; anything in that story tbh.
Sounds more like the LL got a £1600 windfall.0 -
what the yell did you do in that property???
and that charge for turf is mad
0 -
-
what the yell did you do in that property???
and that charge for turf is mad
The charge covered replacement turf, and an estimated rate that a gardener would charge to tend to it. It is a bit excessive, but originally the LL quoted £605 for this work, so this is a much better deal.0 -
£1,000 for re-decoration? What's that all about? Did you paint all the walls in weird painting designs?0
-
L was taking the P. However, it probably had the desired effect of tricking you into an overly generous counter offer.
"Invoices" hahaha! There is no way the L spent 12k of their own money on that work. They were invented.0 -
For any tenants who may stumble across this thread I would like to point out that there is absolutely no need whatsoever to hire a "professional" cleaner or gardener even if your tenancy agreement says you must hire a "professional." All a tenant must do to get their deposit back is return the property in the same condition it was in at the start of tenancy minus any fair wear and tear. How the tenant achieves this is irrelevant and as the OP has found out paying someone for a service is no guarantee that the service will be carried out to a reasonable standards. Applying a little elbow grease would probably have been cheaper and therefore more MSE.
:money:
Thank you though for sharing your experience with DPS.0 -
I agree. Hiring a shampooer and getting the cleaning done themselvs would have taken time, but saved an absolute fortune in cleaning fees and charges from the LL, from the sounds of it. You can easily google to find out how to remove difficult stains. I think we get a post on here every couple of weeks saying 'hired a cleaning company, they did a terrible job, LL is charging for cleaning'. It also seems to happen after moving out more than it should. I wish all prospective tenants were made to go on a 'how to clean tough stains the easy way' course before taking up residency. Or like LL's in some areas, forced to go on courses that tell them what their rights/responsibilities are and what to do.
The OP has reduced the original bill the LL was trying to present, but I wish they'd asked on here before presenting their case, I think it could have been reduced a lot further if they had presented the case a little differently. I don't intend to be ungenerous to the OP but going in a shop and talking down the price of an overpriced product til its only £50 above what it should be is not MSE lol.
Nest time come here first lol.0
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