Deposit agent/contractor scam?

saajan_12

yasscor wrote: »

Hello,
I have left a flat (and the country) in early June. We got the flat new, and stayed 2 years. The flat has never been properly painted, the wooden floor never varnished correctly and already had chips in the check in report. - okay, that's how to you agreed to take the flat, so not inherently 'bad' of the LL - they don't have to provide a luxury property. Did you take pictures of this / ensure its refected in the check in inventory?
We had made some holes to hang mirrors, - was this in breach of the tenancy agreement? and I filled them up and sanded but I couldn't repaint the concerned walls -
Its your responsibility to return the property in the same condition as you received it. The fact you couldn't repaint isn't the LL's fault,
your alternative was to not make holes. because it would have looked very weird next to the other unpainted walls (I tried, I bought the exact reference of paint and it showed the flat clearly was never painted... - walls do discolour over time, doesn't mean they weren't painted. If you touched the walls of the flat you would have white powder left on your hands, this was showed to the agency when they came to inspect the flat, and I have a written email ). The checkout report mentions no stains on the carpets but the agency claims there are stains. - so ask them for proof.
It can be hard to show stains / slight color changes in pictures.
This is just to set the context.

Sounds like you do owe for repainting to hide the mismatch due to your holes. Focus on whether the other damages were indeed caused during your tenancy, and the reasonable cost to repair these. It was your responsibility to return the property in the same condition (so no patch paint, no mismatched walls) so your failure to do this means the LL can use their choice of tradesperson and charge you for it.

However If they have quoted significantly higher costs then you can challenge with your own quotes by a comparable company. Try once directly with the LL/agent, else go through the deposit scheme, providing your proof and your lower quotes for the work.

Ignore the 'fraud' angle, as there's many possible reasons and none will help you, the point is you have to pay the reasonable cost.

yasscor

I did ask for proof about the carpets on the picture sent you can clearly see the outlines of our bed and chest of drawers, the rest faded a bit, no stains and none visible on the checkout pictures either and no mention of stains by the independent checkout.
The issue about the paint was told by email to the agency , and they came to inspect and did nothing.
They are clearly going for betterment, (luxury carpets instead of the crappy one in place). They don't want to provide invoices for the works done originally nor for the original carpets. They want us to pay in whole for everything.
My tenancy agreement says :
"To hang posters, pictures or other items in the property using a reasonable number of commercial picture hooks"
This is what was done.
As for the floor it was already chipped (in the checkin heavy dents and chips), and we added several light scratches to that over a 2 year tenancy, but the floor is crap cheap wood and doesn't seem to be varnished properly. We protected every furniture item but it still got scrapped and now they are claiming we should pay for the whole floor to be repolished and varnished twice (2000£...)

I like things to be fair and we warned the agency many times about all this as they had 2 years after completion of the building to make claims to the building company... They didn't do a thing and told us "not to worry"...
And now this very clear scam ... I've had it with them , this is a very big company and they are clearly abusing us.

yasscor

HWG wrote: »

This is hilarious!

OP - I think this deffo sounds like a scam. You've already checked Companies House - maybe you could do some more digging, call the contractors, inquire about their mistakes, maybe find a connection between the two.

Failing that, I'd be tempted to send a short statement without making any direct accusations. State that you've noticed the same obvious error in both supposedly independent quotes, and that you'll be proceeding down the formal dispute route.

I did : the answer was "I'll have them correct their quotes" they sent the same ones without said line and removed 500£...

I don't even have a phone number for one of the companies... No name no nothing. I've never seen this in my life.

HWG

Is your deposit protected? It should be straightforward to dispute if so.

If your contract states you were allowed picture hooks, and the rest of the damage was already noted in the inventory, it seems like it would be easy to dispute.

It does sound like the flat had some snagging issues that should have been dealt with, and that the agent failed to act upon this. You're not liable for that though.

thelem

Your checkout report documents the condition of the property when you left it. If there were no stains on the carpets when you left the property, then I don't see how the agent can claim that they are your responsibility.

yasscor

Yes lui deposit is protected , and the checkout is clear : steam cleaned no stains.
I'm sure to win at the dispute resolution , I called TDS the girl laughed at the sum that was demanded.
The fact is I really believe they have a scam in place and really don't like that.

HWG

yasscor wrote: »

Yes lui deposit is protected , and the checkout is clear : steam cleaned no stains.
I'm sure to win at the dispute resolution , I called TDS the girl laughed at the sum that was demanded.
The fact is I really believe they have a scam in place and really don't like that.

Yeah fair play. It sounds like you'll escape this time, but the next person might not be so lucky.

If you're going to email them anyway and say you're disputing it, you might as well include a note saying that you suspect that there's fraud afoot. It might put the wind up them...