deposit dispute

debbymcc

Please could anyone advice me. 1st thanx to any who has patience to read this its a bit long winded.
Paid a £800 deposit in June 06.Had a AST for 12months which ended in June 07 At this point LL asked to inspect property and asked what our plans were. They inspected the house were happy to continue on a month by month basis. No further tenancy agreement was drawn up.There were many serious problems with the house.I notified them of these several times throughout the first year and listed them in writing at the end of the 12 months when they inspected the house. These included;
A live electric socket in the bathroom, which I discovered by finding my teenage daughter drying her hair in there.
The cooker hob positioned approx 12inches below a wooden kitchen cupboard and an elecric striplight below the cupboard. No extractor.
Completely rotten window frame in the childrens room, this was fixed after 11months. By which time there was no frame left at the bottom, just glass suspended. All winter like this
Anyway, many other problems like this that nothing was done about. This is why we wanted to move and requested the month by month arrangement.
We moved out on 3rd Nov but I kept the house another week so that I could go back and clean/decorate. Worked all week. Painted, hired carpet cleaner, washed all curtains cleaned inside and out of windows, cut grass.The bloomin place sparkled, def cleaner than when i moved into it. Met LL at house on 12th nov, she inspected the house and I agreed I owed her 1 extra weeks rent and that she would deduct it from my deposit. She took my bank details and said balance would be in my acc mond pm.
Tues, the other LL(there were 2) who hadnt been there when i handed over keys, phoned my husband to say that we had "abused the floor". She was referring to marks on the wooden living room floor left by 2 settees. We had a rug in the middle of the room so the marks did stand out but were only the result of using the room normally. I AM NOT A FLOOR ABUSER. Also she claims that there was a full tank of oil. We def do not agree. we believe the tank was approx 1/3 full when we moved in and have left same amount.Wev asked for reciepts. So Iv not had 1p returned. Really dont want to fight but cannot afford to lose this much money. HELP ANYONE??

merlinthehappypig

Sorry to hear about your problems. Did you have an inventory provided when you moved in?

debbymcc

Hi thanx for reading it all. Inventory was not provided, def didnt see or sign anything, but LL claiming one was in the kitchen drawer!

lynzpower

If there WAS an inventory, and YOU havent signed it- for the purposes of court, it has never existed.

Clearly the LL should have had a copy!

I do inventories for a company ( independent) and I go around and mark up everything thats there, every scuff is photographed. this is sent via email to
the LL the LA - the LA can then give a copy to tenant for them to sign off.

I wouldnt even bother to be honest negotiating. Send them a letter befroe action asking for the money to be returned within 14 days. If it isnt - time for moneyclaim online - the small claims court track asking for it back.

Mrs_Thrify

Just what you don't need at Christmas! I am not realy up on renting as I own my house, but it sounds like they have your money and intend on keeping it :eek: . As you said your sofa's did mark the floor, so there should be a reduction. £800 is a lot of money so you need to keep talking and come to an agreement. I think this should have been agreed at the inspection and some kind of paper signed to say action/no action required. Can you go to CIB.
Best of luck....

Zazen999

Ask to see the the signed inventory that they took from you at the start; you seem to have mislaid your copy.

Keep calm above all; they play on you panicking. Calcuate the potential losses if they are correct; and ask then to send a cheque to you new addess and put the amount that you expect. Put nicely in the letter that neither issue was picked up on the final inspecction; and how do you know that this didn't occur after that date as you vacated the property on xxx and surely it the point of the final inspection is to pick up these things.

When I left one house they were planning on ripping the place apart, and even had builders round to quote; but they still insisted in charging for cleaners etc, and even took £1 for a lightbulb; they are all moneygrabbing when you leave, so quote back at them what they have said, provided and with no inventory it leaves you little to go on.

Wear and tear is usually taken for granted; but LLs will argue with you until the cows come home.

Oh, and ask for the reciepts if they are insisting on getting any work down at your expense; or tell them that you want to get a quote yourself, so they need to give you 3 times when you can get tradespeople around to give you 3 separate quotes; basically just play them at their own game.

paulmcfadyen

Zazen999 wrote: »

Ask to see the the signed inventory that they took from you at the start; you seem to have mislaid your copy.

Keep calm above all; they play on you panicking. Calcuate the potential losses if they are correct; and ask then to send a cheque to you new addess and put the amount that you expect. Put nicely in the letter that neither issue was picked up on the final inspecction; and how do you know that this didn't occur after that date as you vacated the property on xxx and surely it the point of the final inspection is to pick up these things.

When I left one house they were planning on ripping the place apart, and even had builders round to quote; but they still insisted in charging for cleaners etc, and even took £1 for a lightbulb; they are all moneygrabbing when you leave, so quote back at them what they have said, provided and with no inventory it leaves you little to go on.

Wear and tear is usually taken for granted; but LLs will argue with you until the cows come home.

Oh, and ask for the reciepts if they are insisting on getting any work down at your expense; or tell them that you want to get a quote yourself, so they need to give you 3 times when you can get tradespeople around to give you 3 separate quotes; basically just play them at their own game.

No we're not. I'm an honest landlord and not interested in grabbing anything unfaitly or not owed to me.

lynzpower

julie_d wrote: »

Just what you don't need at Christmas! I am not realy up on renting as I own my house, but it sounds like they have your money and intend on keeping it :eek: . As you said your sofa's did mark the floor, so there should be a reduction. £800 is a lot of money so you need to keep talking and come to an agreement. I think this should have been agreed at the inspection and some kind of paper signed to say action/no action required. Can you go to CIB.
Best of luck....

I would have thought that a couple of marks on the floor is fair wear and tear. I presume this is laminate flooring. Ive had laminate before and it scrapes from barely anything, I had a couple of fairly deep gauges in mine from moving the chair by the computer. Most laminate is cheap soft wood, that is NOT hardwearing no matter what anyone says.

really does depend on what the extent of the damage is.

In any case witohut a inventory, they cant prove they werent there when you moved in. this is why its SO important for LLS to get the inventories right.

debbymcc

thanx lynz, julie and zaz, and ok paul i know they`re not all bad. The LL at the new house has provided photos and an inventory when we moved in.

I think had there been an inventory she would have brought her copy to check against at the end of the tenancy. I am sure there never was one, just tenancy agreement and i signed a photocopy of the keys. I thought the marks on the floor were fair wear and tear and as i had a verbal agreement re return of the deposit didnt worry. I suppose all the probs with house are irrelevant as I didnt do anything about them. Never witheld rent and always paid on time. Tried to get a Fire Safety officer to inspect cooker situation,he didnt turn up. It was around the time the 1st years lease was up, we`d applied for another house and the LLS were asked for references. That house app fell through so i was worried that theyd want us out after 12months. So i didnt persue anything.

debbymcc

hi lynz, no not laminate, solid maple with surface varnish type treatment. My husband went back yesterday to look at it again. Mostly its damage to the varnish with a few small indentations to the wood. The LL had the EA in taking pics of abused floor.

merlinthehappypig

lynzpower wrote: »

If there WAS an inventory, and YOU havent signed it- for the purposes of court, it has never existed.

Clearly the LL should have had a copy!

I do inventories for a company ( independent) and I go around and mark up everything thats there, every scuff is photographed. this is sent via email to
the LL the LA - the LA can then give a copy to tenant for them to sign off.

I wouldnt even bother to be honest negotiating. Send them a letter befroe action asking for the money to be returned within 14 days. If it isnt - time for moneyclaim online - the small claims court track asking for it back.

This why I asked. As far as I am aware if there is no inventory, then the landlord has no case and you will get your deposit back plus any court fees if it gets that far. From other cases that have been discussed on here, the letter before action alone normally works, but I would simply stop negotiating at this stage, ask them to produce the inventory signed by yourself within a fixed timescale and sent them a properly worded letter before action when they can't.

I suspect that any further negotiation, especially in writing, about damage you might be willing to pay for will only weaken your case.

Don't be worried about taking them to court. They will not have a case without a signed inventory.