Bad Landlords, Agents and Students - getting back deposit

nicecuppatea_3

Hi everyone,
My student daughter is having some of her (my!) deposit kept back by her LL (£50 for replacement of 1 stick-on door hook among other things). She has a cheque for some of the money but wants to dispute the rest. Should she cash the cheque or not? Would cashing it be taken as conceding defeat? Also, the LL unexpectedly arrived as daughter, flatmates and some of their parents were cleaning the house and said everything was to his satisfaction, (unfortunately not in writing) it was only afterwards he decided to keep back £600.
The Agent has said if she wants any deposit back she should contact the LL (whose address they conveniently don't have only an email, mobile is not recognised and, surprise surprise, has now 'gone away' for six months - presumably on holiday with my money!) Surely they are responsible for this sort of thing, isn't that what they're paid for? Don't they have a contract to such an effect with the LL? Is there some sort of 'body' Letting Agents are accountable to? Help and/or advice plus frightening legal type jargonny words to use in letters welcome.

sooz

Was there an inventory and was it signed by all the tenants?

Guy_Montag

First off you need the LL address, get that from the front of the tenancy agreement.

If it's not there call the LA, start by saying something to the effect of the following & follow it up in writing: State that, under the section 48 of the Landlord & Tenant Act they are required to provide you with an address at which notices can be served. State that if they are unwilling to give you the LL's address you require the addresses of the directors of the LA*, since you will be taking action against them. Should they mutter something about the Data Protection Act, point out that under section 35 of that act, personal data is exempt in connection with legal proceedings.

(With thanks to:)
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/landlord's_address.htm

*this may not be possible, but it should put the wind up them a bit.

Once you get the address, I guess you need to find out if he has left the country. I'd start by calling his home phone (if you can use 192.com to find it) from an unknown phone & asking to speak to "Dave". Alternatively spend a couple of mornings sitting in a car eating bacon butties watching their address.

Remember you have 6 years (I think) to submit a claim, so !!!!!!ing off for 6 months only delays the inevitable.

Frags

I had a similar problem when i left my last property, they insisted on keeping nearly half of our deposit because of a door lock that was on its way out when we moved in, if we had been clever we should of picked this up on the inventory but being young and nieve we didnt! Luckily our agent was quite helpful, we wrote a very abrupt letter to the Landlord that was passed via the Agent, we negotiated and got the amount they wanted to keep down quite considerably. The agent should be trying to help you out as you are their customer just as much as the landlord is!!!

thesaint

nicecuppatea wrote: »

Is there some sort of 'body' Letting Agents are accountable to?

They are accountable to a person who has a lot of aliases, the most common ones are The devil, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Prince-of -Darkness etc.

He's hell to catch in his office though. :A

dolce_vita

I think they all members of the

Commission for Underhanded No-good Thieves and Scumbags