Landlord claim during corona outbreak

csgohan4

my previous LL charged me 30 pounds to remove a single sink sponge left by our cleaners, so you can imagine what they will charge you for your left over stuff

Shelby_Paige

At the moment the landlord hasn’t given me any notification of what it is they are wanting to charge and what for so I have said that I won’t agree to anything until
that has been discussed. Obviously if it’s for the removal of the items left and it is a reasonable amount then I have absolutely no issue paying it although I’m not sure where it will be disposed of. If this pandemic hadn’t been happening this wouldn’t even be a situation to deal with as we could have disposed of it. But I couldn’t take it with me due to moving back in with family after the housing market slowed/stopped as I was looking at buying. 

Comms69

Shelby_Paige said:

At the moment the landlord hasn’t given me any notification of what it is they are wanting to charge and what for so I have said that I won’t agree to anything until
that has been discussed. Obviously if it’s for the removal of the items left and it is a reasonable amount then I have absolutely no issue paying it although I’m not sure where it will be disposed of. If this pandemic hadn’t been happening this wouldn’t even be a situation to deal with as we could have disposed of it. But I couldn’t take it with me due to moving back in with family after the housing market slowed/stopped as I was looking at buying. 

Removal of furniture i'd expect to be in the £300+ range.

Chandler85

There was you and your ex partner in the property when you left.  So both of you could have removed them.

There is nowhere within anything in the Coronavirus legislation stating if you are high risk then you should move back with family, so it isn't relevant.  The Coronavirus has made if so you couldn't dispose of the the items yourself (physically) but there is still skip hire if a lot of items and private waste collection.

The costs will be as Comms69 said, £100s easily if there are bulky items.

SmashedAvacado

This sounds very much like you were chancing it - your deposit could be properly deducted for the costs of removal here based on what you have said. You should ask your landlord to show you the costs, but given the circumstances we are in, you can't expect him to have done too much shopping around - so these might be higher than if you had taken the time to find someone yourself. 

iampetesmith

Ours was a bit of a funny one. The landlord came round a month or 2 before we moved out, said it was immaculate, was really impressed etc. and he asked if I was getting rid of the old furniture. I said I was because we were buying all new stuff for the new house, so he told me not to bother as he could make the rooms look dressed for the estate agent photos.

We left the furniture he asked for as well as some other bits we thought he might want, such as a DVD rack that was screwed to the wall and a couple of other units that we left in each room. The letting agent phoned and said the landlord was taking £100 out of the deposit for the removal of all the furniture, so I could have £400 back. The house also never went on the market and our old neighbour told us he'd moved his niece in instead, so something was a bit weird about it.

My guess is that either he changed his mind about selling the house last minute and wanted to get rid of the furniture before he moved his niece in (it was old and tatty anyway, that's why I was getting rid of it), or there was more furniture there than he wanted so he had it removed. He could have kept it for all I know, but I don't really care. The way I see it, I'd already spent thousands on buying a house so having £400 back instead of £500 was nothing. I also don't have to deal with landlords/letting agents now.

AdrianC

Shelby_Paige said:

At the moment the landlord hasn’t given me any notification of what it is they are wanting to charge and what for so I have said that I won’t agree to anything until that has been discussed. Obviously if it’s for the removal of the items left and it is a reasonable amount then I have absolutely no issue paying it although I’m not sure where it will be disposed of. If this pandemic hadn’t been happening this wouldn’t even be a situation to deal with as we could have disposed of it. But I couldn’t take it with me due to moving back in with family after the housing market slowed/stopped as I was looking at buying. 

It's very simple. Put it to the deposit scheme arbitration. The landlord can't claim for anything he can't prove.

But, yes, as others have said, disposing of your left-behind rubbish is definitely a legitimate expense.

TripleH

Am I correct in thinking that if the landlord removed the furniture himself and took it away to dispose of, then he can claim for that? I would expect to see a breakdown of his costs if that was what he did. (This is for the benefit of the Op.) Also, think the arbitration service will be the ones who rule on 'reasonable' where both parties disagree on an amount charged.

saajan_12

TripleH said:

Am I correct in thinking that if the landlord removed the furniture himself and took it away to dispose of, then he can claim for that? I would expect to see a breakdown of his costs if that was what he did. (This is for the benefit of the Op.) Also, think the arbitration service will be the ones who rule on 'reasonable' where both parties disagree on an amount charged.

The LL can recover what the reasonable cost *would be* to remove the items. While a paid receipt is good evidence, they can also use quotes. Whether they then choose to spend that money is not your concern. They could instead live with it, or do the heavy lifting themselves and use the money to pay for their time, pay someone after teh lockdown is over, or whatever.