Agent stalling on tenancy deposit return

blablabla87

Hello just wondering about how best to resolve a situation with my former rental agency.
We left the property on 1 November and a check-out report was carried out the following day in our absence. This report was then circulated to ourselves and the landlord and by 7th November it was agreed that a deduction for ‘damage’ would be made for a small (~1 square cm) chip/scuff to the paintwork of the inside of a hallway door frame (I suppose we could have contested that being wear and tear but whatever…). Since then however we have not heard anything from the agent about what sum they will be deducting from the deposit of £1500 for this damage. We have emailed once and called three times to ask for a sum but each time we told the agent’s contractor has yet to get back to them with an invoice quote. It is now 16 calendar days since we received the checkout report, 14 days since the agreement between parties on damage and 20 days since leaving the property and we still have no idea how much of the deposit we will be getting back or when. The latest phone call to the agent was rather terse with her again saying she is awaiting an email from the contractor and that she would get back to me as soon as this occurred but to be frank I am getting a little annoyed by the delay. £1500 is not an inconsequential sum of money to us. At pointing out the length of time we have been waiting the agent became snappy and said it is our fault we are having to wait since we left the property with dilapidations and had we not done so we would have had the deposit back within a week...



I now have no option but to keep waiting to hear back from the agent (whenever that may be) but legally where do I stand? Should I start submitting a claim to the deposit protection scheme or would this inflame matters? I know an agent has to return a deposit within 10 days of request but given I am still unsure what exactly would be deducted returned I'm not sure if we even at that stage yet.



I don’t know if we have even technically fully requested the deposit return as I didnt explicitly state 14 days ago "please return the deposit wihtin 10 days" although clearly we have requested in aroundabouts terms when the agreement on the damage was made. So can the agent keep stringing us along waiting for their contractor to give a quote?


Thanks for advice!

Wanderingpomm

Put in a claim for the whole lot. You have given them enough time and have nothing to lose. The majority of tenants win the claims

MinnieMouseEars

Just start a claim for the full amount from the deposit protection scheme that your deposit is being held with. I think they will then give them a time limit to submit what they want to deduct.

G_M

As above put in a claim.


* Deposits: payment, protection and return

sal_III

Just bear in mind that the time scales for return by the deposit scheme are a bit long. Still waiting for resolution on a dispute that started on 17.10 for a tenancy that ended on 27.09. This is the status log:

17th Oct 2018 Dispute Received online
22nd Oct 2018 Case Accepted
6th Nov 2018 Awaiting Pre Adjudication Review

Edit: Forgot to add that the main portion of the deposit was refunded by the Agency at the point where the dispute was lodged - 17.10, only the contested £135 are outstanding. No idea if this is the rule/norm.

blablabla87

sal_III wrote: »

Edit: Forgot to add that the main portion of the deposit was refunded by the Agency at the point where the dispute was lodged - 17.10, only the contested £135 are outstanding. No idea if this is the rule/norm.

Thanks for heads up on time scale. I believe the deposit minus any contested amount is returned quickly once a dispute is lodged and so I would hope that the act of lodging a dispute would force the agent in to acting quicker to reveal what the damage deduction would be...