Another TDS query

jordylass

I had rented without incident for about 20 months.
I had a new contract every 6 months, the last one in May 07 until November 07. I wrote and told the LL agent I was vacating December 07, so my contract ran on a month. All round were happy with this.
I have just received a letter saying they are going to keep £250 for new decoration to a room.
The house was in a very bad state of decor when I arrived and I have decorated 2 rooms while I've been there. I had stripped some of the paper from one wall of the room in question. One wall was without paper and had what looked like a tester pot painted to the middle of it when I moved in.
I feel that I am being asked to make good on a room which was in a bad state of repair when I rented it.
There was no inventory and I can see nothing in the tenancy agreement about TDS.
What should my next move be?

jordylass

Does anyone have any thoughts??

merlinthehappypig

My understanding is that 'no inventory, no deposit retention'.

If you have a search through recent threads ('deposit' as the search item should do) there are some really useful threads about exactly the same problem. I think you need to send a 'letter before action' and some of the threads have links to templates and how to make a claim through the courts if you need to.

merlinthehappypig

This one is the best:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=227606

RabbitMad

tell the LL to return the deposit straight away otherwise you'll get awarded 3 times the deposit because they didn't protect it via the TDS.

I would have thought that you'd have you full depoist back PDQ.

(although I'm not aware of anybody actually getting this 3x deposit but the legislation allows for it)

Generali

Sue. Go to the CAB and they'll take you through the process. It's very simple though.

jordylass

I was just writing a letter, but according to this page they would not need to put my deposit in a scheme, because the deposit was taken when the tenancy was taken out (May '06). It did not have to be protected on renewal of the tenancy (May '07)...darn!!!

sooz

Typical government rubbish website, full of badly written 'mis'-information.

If you renewed your tenancy after april 07, and got a new AST, your deposit should have been protected.

Only if your tenancy had continued as a periodic tenancy would it not need to be protected. Do you have a new agreement, dated May 07?


Ignore the bit that says deposits received before april for tenancies started after april 07...that has nothing to do with your situation (or now anyone elses!)