Deposit Not Secured - No GSC - Potentially Unathorised Tenants

Mantle123

Good Morning everyone,

Apologies in advance, this is potentially a long winded one for a Friday morning...

So, I’ve been renting a property since 04/2016, which is the first property I’ve rented, and my partner and I decided we’d like to see whether we could get Hive installed, to control the heating over the winter.
Whilst looking into the process to get this done, I realised that our boiler had not been serviced since we moved in, 2 and a half years ago.
I looked into how often this should be done, and it’s advised that this is done annually, along with a Gas Safety Certificate (GSC), which legally needs to be checked and renewed at least every 12 months.
Checking through my documents, the last GSC was provided just before we moved in, in May of 2016.
This raised my concerns regarding our Landlord, and I had a look through my signed tenancy agreement for his details, and something else caught my eye - We had both signed an agreement which stated that he was going to put my £575 security deposit in a secure government-backed scheme.
Again I checked through my documents and could find no evidence that this had been done, despite a signed receipt that I had paid the deposit to the Agency.
I checked online at the 3 Deposit Scheme providers and there was no record of my deposit in any of them.

On another post on this forum, regarding similar matters, someone had mentioned looking out for other ‘red flags’ following this, one of which was mail still being delivered to our address, addressed to our LL.
Since we moved in, we have had the occasional letter delivered, which we initially were hand delivering to his house intermittently, and asking him to change the address with whoever was sending these letters.
After a while, we stopped delivering them and just threw them on a pile when they arrived.
Upon further inspection, all of these letters are from a mortgage company.
This leads me to believe that his mortgage company have not given him consent to let the property, and as such would make us unauthorised tenants and invalidate any insurance he might have (The odd letter from insurance companies has arrived addressed to him).

I sent our LL a letter 3 days ago (signed for, and had confirmation he refined it), asking firstly that he arrange for a GSC to be carried out, and to contact me regarding this within the next 10 days, as well as asking for evidence that my deposit had been submitted into a deposit scheme, and to provide the relevant details of such scheme.
Yesterday, I received a email from Deposit Protection Service, advising me that my landlord had now set my deposit in a secure scheme, as of 16/08/2018. The scheme that he has now paid the deposit in to is not even the same scheme we agreed to on the signed Tenancy agreement., regardless of the fact it’s over two years late.
I’ve sent another letter (Letter Before Action) to my landlord today, advising him that he’s in breach of Sec 213 of the Housing Act, as he failed to secure my deposit within 30 days, and he failed to provide me with the correct information regarding that deposit; stating that it had been deposited in a particular scheme when infact it hadn’t.
I’ve informed him that under the Sec 214 of The Housing Act, of a court is satisfied that he failed to comply with his obligations to me as LL, they will order him to pay up to 3 times my deposit, as well as ordering him to secure my deposit (which has now been done).
I have also advised him that I am open to reasonable offers to resolve this matter, and that failure to come to an agreement over this would result in me taking further legal action - for which he may be liable for costs.

So, my question/s (if you’re still with me ) are:
Firstly, have I done the right thing? I’ve tried to follow advice regarding similar issues on here, and have used the Shelter template letters to send to him.
Secondly, what should I ‘reasonably’ accept as compensation from him to resolve this, before referring this further and taking this to county court.
If we do go to county court, would I have a strong case?
If I don’t hear back from him regarding the GSC, am I right in thinking the only action I can take is to report him to HSE?
We are planning on moving out within the next few months, but does the LL have grounds to issue a S21; is this void until he gets a GSC, or does he even need a S21 if we’re unauthorised tenants?
Should I inform his mortgage company that he’s been letting his property to us, seemingly without their knowledge?
Is there anything else I’ve forgotten to do?

Thanks in advance - apologies if these all seem like rookie mistakes, but this was our first time renting and we assumed that the Agent would have made sure the Landlord was fit to rent from.

Pixie5740

Mantle123 wrote: »

Good Morning everyone,

Apologies in advance, this is potentially a long winded one for a Friday morning...

So, I’ve been renting a property since 04/2016, which is the first property I’ve rented, and my partner and I decided we’d like to see whether we could get Hive installed, to control the heating over the winter.
Whilst looking into the process to get this done, I realised that our boiler had not been serviced since we moved in, 2 and a half years ago.
I looked into how often this should be done, and it’s advised that this is done annually, along with a Gas Safety Certificate (GSC), which legally needs to be checked and renewed at least every 12 months.
Checking through my documents, the last GSC was provided just before we moved in, in May of 2016.
This raised my concerns regarding our Landlord, and I had a look through my signed tenancy agreement for his details, and something else caught my eye - We had both signed an agreement which stated that he was going to put my £575 security deposit in a secure government-backed scheme.
Again I checked through my documents and could find no evidence that this had been done, despite a signed receipt that I had paid the deposit to the Agency.
I checked online at the 3 Deposit Scheme providers and there was no record of my deposit in any of them.

On another post on this forum, regarding similar matters, someone had mentioned looking out for other ‘red flags’ following this, one of which was mail still being delivered to our address, addressed to our LL.
Since we moved in, we have had the occasional letter delivered, which we initially were hand delivering to his house intermittently, and asking him to change the address with whoever was sending these letters.
After a while, we stopped delivering them and just threw them on a pile when they arrived.
Upon further inspection, all of these letters are from a mortgage company.
This leads me to believe that his mortgage company have not given him consent to let the property, and as such would make us unauthorised tenants and invalidate any insurance he might have (The odd letter from insurance companies has arrived addressed to him).

I sent our LL a letter 3 days ago (signed for, and had confirmation he refined it), asking firstly that he arrange for a GSC to be carried out, and to contact me regarding this within the next 10 days, as well as asking for evidence that my deposit had been submitted into a deposit scheme, and to provide the relevant details of such scheme.
Yesterday, I received a email from Deposit Protection Service, advising me that my landlord had now set my deposit in a secure scheme, as of 16/08/2018. The scheme that he has now paid the deposit in to is not even the same scheme we agreed to on the signed Tenancy agreement., regardless of the fact it’s over two years late.
I’ve sent another letter (Letter Before Action) to my landlord today, advising him that he’s in breach of Sec 213 of the Housing Act, as he failed to secure my deposit within 30 days, and he failed to provide me with the correct information regarding that deposit; stating that it had been deposited in a particular scheme when infact it hadn’t.
I’ve informed him that under the Sec 214 of The Housing Act, of a court is satisfied that he failed to comply with his obligations to me as LL, they will order him to pay up to 3 times my deposit, as well as ordering him to secure my deposit (which has now been done).
I have also advised him that I am open to reasonable offers to resolve this matter, and that failure to come to an agreement over this would result in me taking further legal action - for which he may be liable for costs.

So, my question/s (if you’re still with me ) are:
Firstly, have I done the right thing? I’ve tried to follow advice regarding similar issues on here, and have used the Shelter template letters to send to him.
Secondly, what should I ‘reasonably’ accept as compensation from him to resolve this, before referring this further and taking this to county court.
If we do go to county court, would I have a strong case?
If I don’t hear back from him regarding the GSC, am I right in thinking the only action I can take is to report him to HSE?
We are planning on moving out within the next few months, but does the LL have grounds to issue a S21; is this void until he gets a GSC, or does he even need a S21 if we’re unauthorised tenants?
Should I inform his mortgage company that he’s been letting his property to us, seemingly without their knowledge?
Is there anything else I’ve forgotten to do?

Thanks in advance - apologies if these all seem like rookie mistakes, but this was our first time renting and we assumed that the Agent would have made sure the Landlord was fit to rent from.

What makes you think you are an unathorised tenant?

I would have requested a gas safety certificate but I wouldn't have gone in all guns blazing about the deposit at this juncture. I would have kept the ace up my sleeve in case I needed it in the future.

There are many things that can make a Section 21 notice invalid and based on what you have said I strongly suspect that any Section 21 issued to you could well be invalid.

https://markprichard.co.uk/content/documents/170522-Section-21-checker-tool.pdf

Mantle123

Thanks for your reply.
I!!!8217;d previously read (on another post on here I believe) that if the LL did not have Consent To Let from their lender, then anyone renting from the LL would be considered unauthorised teen ants and as such not have the same rights as !!!8216;authorised!!!8217; tenants.
As his mortgage letters are still being sent to us, I would assume that they aren!!!8217;t aware of his correct address, which they would be if they knew he was letting the property. Or would that not be the case?
My girlfriend especially is worried of the mortgage company essentially throwing us out, although I!!!8217;m aware this is extremely unlikely.

tom9980

Mantle123 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.
I!!!8217;d previously read (on another post on here I believe) that if the LL did not have Consent To Let from their lender, then anyone renting from the LL would be considered unauthorised teen ants and as such not have the same rights as !!!8216;authorised!!!8217; tenants.
As his mortgage letters are still being sent to us, I would assume that they aren!!!8217;t aware of his correct address, which they would be if they knew he was letting the property. Or would that not be the case?
My girlfriend especially is worried of the mortgage company essentially throwing us out, although I!!!8217;m aware this is extremely unlikely.

Mortgage companies are not going to throw you on the streets, a letter would be sent to the property "To the occupiers of 123 street" asking who was living in the property and under what terms, they may repossess the property and evict you legally in the normal way a Landlord would in most cases.

Agree with pixie you will have annoyed the Landlord and or Agent big time, if they are willing to let property in this way what else are they capable of doing? illegal eviction? who knows really.

You have acted far too soon without seeking advice first, and you should expect to have to move sooner rather than later.

Wanderingpomm

I think you are just setting yourself up for eviction.
If the deposit is now lodged the courts won!!!8217;t do anything about it. You certainly will not get 3 x the amount unless he is a repeat offender.
You would have just been better to have asked for a gas certificate and the deposit to be lodged without wanting compensation.

Wanderingpomm

I would have requested a gas safety certificate but I wouldn't have gone in all guns blazing about the deposit at this juncture. I would have kept the ace up my sleeve in case I needed it in the future.

There are many things that can make a Section 21 notice invalid and based on what you have said I strongly suspect that any Section 21 issued to you could well be invalid.

https://markprichard.co.uk/content/documents/170522-Section-21-checker-tool.pdf[/QUOTE]

The LL has prob done everything now to validate an S21.
And my mortgage goes to the rental property I own and is a fully legitimate buy to let so you may be jumping to conclusions.

Throwaway1

Wanderingpomm wrote: »

I think you're just setting yourself up for eviction. I agree with this bit but if they're moving out in a few months then it would take that long anyway.
If the deposit is now lodged the courts won't do anything about it. That's not true. The deposit has to be protected and information sent out within 30days. You then get 6 years to take it to court for up to 3x the amount.
You would have just been better to have asked for a gas certificate and the deposit to be lodged without wanting compensation.

As you get up to 6 years to claim compensation I would have waited until I'd moved out before bringing it up but there's nothing the OP can do about that now.

Wanderingpomm

Throwaway1 wrote: »

As you get up to 6 years to claim compensation I would have waited until I'd moved out before bringing it up but there's nothing the OP can do about that now.

That may be the law but they very rarely do it. Usually if the landlord puts it in as soon as reminded they get a slap on the wrist. As he put it in before being taken to court the tenants are on shakey ground.

00ec25

congratulations,
do not expect to be offered a tenancy renewal when your fixed term runs out, and if it already has you now have avery annoyed LL likely to be looking to get rid of you at their earliest convenience

Pixie5740

Wanderingpomm wrote: »

That may be the law but they very rarely do it. Usually if the landlord puts it in as soon as reminded they get a slap on the wrist. As he put it in before being taken to court the tenants are on shakey ground.

This is utter bull crap. The law clearly states that if the landlord fails to protect the deposit within 30 days then the judge must award the tenant 1 to 3 times the value of the deposit. Judges are there to apply the letter of the law not make it up as they go along.

dimbo61

Good Luck on your compensation claim for WHAT ?
Have you suffered any financial loss ?
You will get 1x your deposit when you leave and good luck in getting any more.
You brought to the attention of the Landlord that the deposit had not been protected and he/she then took steps to protect the deposit. Even in a different scheme to the one stated in your tenancy agreement it is never the less in a government approved scheme.
However if the Muppet of a Landlord failed to protect the deposit what else has he/she missed. Co2 Alarm, smoke alarms , inventory , security, maintenance.
I am sure the Landlord will be only too happy to give you a glowing reference.
The LL is required by law to carry out a Gas Safe Check every year and not a boiler service. Did you remind him that the property required a GSC last July or did you forget as well ?