Landlord didn't protect deposit and now there's a dispute brewing

RAS

OK

As an aside, did your landlord give you a certificate confirming that she had an agreement with HMRC re tax?

re the damage.

A Landlord can expect to receive the property back in the same condition, less fair wear and tear. 

And any compensation depends on the age and state of the damaged item, they can't ask for betterment. So a small mark on a low cost carpet laid 5 years ago would not entitle them to any compensation and certainly not a new carpet. There was a long thread here about acknowledged damage with an iron, for which the LL wanted the cost of a new carpet. The adjudicator gave them £60-80.

But you can't use the adjudicators because the LL failed to protect the deposit. Rather than arguing about the details, just go for the full return of the deposit, without any deductions.

I'd suggest you refer the LL to this case Legal Case: Liaw v Sohal – a question of multiple tenancy deposit fines – LandlordZONE

And advise that if you get the deposit back in full with 10 working days, you will forego the claim for 3xdeposit.

macman

Unless the cost of the proposed repairs is greater than the value of the deposit, then she doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Send her an LBA stating that, if she doesn't return your deposit in full in the next 14 days, you will sue her for non-protection of your deposit. 
There is no defence to this charge, so you will win up to 3 x the deposit, plus costs. 
As a separate matter, if you have failed to deduct the income tax due to the LL being a permanent foreign resident, you are potentially liable for the back tax due. 
It's not clear from your posts if the LL is the lady in Spain, or the UK local company. If it's the latter, and you have been paying into her personal bank account, then this is very dubious.
If it's the former, then you were required to register under the NRL scheme, collect the tax due, and pay it to HMRC.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/paying-tax-on-rent-to-landlords-abroad#what-you-need-to-do-if-youre-a-tenant

Baer1982

FreeBear said:

How much of this "damage" can be attributed to fair wear and tear ?

I guess some of it can be attributed to fair wear and tear. For instance there's a kitchen cabinet door that's become progressively loose in the time that we've lived there. It was a bit jiggly when we moved in and we didn't think to point it out for our moving in inventory report. Now the hinge is much looser, so the door leans out about 1/2 inch at the top when open.

Landlord wants the hinge replaced as part of the 'damage', when it's logical that over the time we've been there a loose hinge would get sufficiently worse to require a replacement. 

It's this kind of stuff that's getting our backs up, really. There's the odd mark on the walls etc that I'm happy to get painted over or pay for (but not OK with painting the whole wall/room), but I'm really upset at the unfairness and the sense that we're being taken advantage of. 

I'm on the back-foot a little bit because I didn't point out a lot of these potential problems and didn't get them included in our moving in inventory. So if you just compare the moving in inventory (which is like 4 pages) with the moving out inventory which is nearly twice as long (and seems to have been prepared by someone experienced with crime scene investigation, going by the attention they've paid to the smallest of scuffs), it looks like we got a house in mint condition and are leaving it in a sorry state. 

Edit - It appears our moving in inventory was put together AFTER the next tenant moved in, so it's possible the new tenant had an opportunity to possibly poke around for a good few days and everything they complained about has made its way into our moving out inventory as things we need to fix. I can't be sure about this, but I think so because we got our moving out inventory a good 10 days after we moved out, and our former neighbours thought the next tenant moved in 2-3 days after we left. 

Baer1982

hazyjo said:

Please don't agree anything with her, including paying any percentage, before speaking with us.

She can't claim betterment, and without a detailed inventory when you moved in, she prob won't have a leg to stand on.

Got it, thanks @h@hazyjo. 

As I was just saying in my other response up the thread, she does have a moving in inventory from the start of the tenancy, and a much more rigorously done one from after we moved out. So a before-and-after inventory comparison makes it look like we took a gem of a property and at the least, were slobs with it, and probably more like we sat around each weekend looking for things to break. 

FreeBear

Baer1982 said:

FreeBear said:

How much of this "damage" can be attributed to fair wear and tear ?

I guess some of it can be attributed to fair wear and tear. For instance there's a kitchen cabinet door that's become progressively loose in the time that we've lived there. It was a bit jiggly when we moved in and we didn't think to point it out for our moving in inventory report. Now the hinge is much looser, so the door leans out about 1/2 inch at the top when open.

Landlord wants the hinge replaced as part of the 'damage', when it's logical that over the time we've been there a loose hinge would get sufficiently worse to require a replacement.

May well find that it is just a screw or two that have come loose. A couple of seconds with a screwdriver to fix it.

MEM62

Baer1982 said:

FreeBear said:

How much of this "damage" can be attributed to fair wear and tear ?

I'm on the back-foot a little bit because I didn't point out a lot of these potential problems and didn't get them included in our moving in inventory. 

No you are not.  You deposit was not protected.  You hold all the cards.  

Baer1982

macman said:

As a separate matter, if you have failed to deduct the income tax due to the LL being a permanent foreign resident, you are potentially liable for the back tax due. 
It's not clear from your posts if the LL is the lady in Spain, or the UK local company. If it's the latter, and you have been paying into her personal bank account, then this is very dubious.
If it's the former, then you were required to register under the NRL scheme, collect the tax due, and pay it to HMRC.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/paying-tax-on-rent-to-landlords-abroad#what-you-need-to-do-if-youre-a-tenant

Whoops. This is a new wrinkle. I understand she lives in Spain, but don't know her affairs well enough to know if she's a long-term resident there (i.e. from HMRC's perspective) or merely a snowbird, who's still a UK tax resident. 

My rental contract merely provides a bank account to which the rent is to be paid, and when I made the payment, my banking app confirmed that the account was in her name (i.e. not in her company's name). 

Her address for serving notices etc is a UK address, which I googled and figured out is a business address with dozens of companies sharing the same address. 

As far as me deducting tax is concerned, as far as I know/as far as I was told by the landlord, I've been paying as per the tenancy agreement. Surely I'm not required to do more digging around than that? 

Baer1982

FreeBear said:

May well find that it is just a screw or two that have come loose. A couple of seconds with a screwdriver to fix it.

It feels like that @FreeBear, but that's the sort of things-that-were-going-south-and-finally-came-apart-in-my-hands that she's expecting me to fix. This particular hinge I'd even get it done just to get her off my back, but there's more like this, and more expensive sounding repairs too.

RAS

Stop going on about the repairs.

They are irrelevant.

Send a letter before action to the LL. Send a physical copy to the address for the serving of notices, and email to the LL as well.

Dear LL

Further to our recent discussion regarding the deposit, it appears that you failed to protect this in line with the legal requirements. 

I refer to Liaw v Sohal.

If the full deposit is not returned  to my/our account by (date), we will commence legal action to claim the deposit plus penalty (up to 3 times the deposit).

Baer1982

Baer1982

RAS said:

Stop going on about the repairs.

They are irrelevant.

Got it - I've been outraged at the demands and worried about them so they're probably looming large in my mind, but your comment is reassuring. I'll put this out of my mind 

I take it that it doesn't make a difference if I send my letter before or after the landlord sends me a notice to pay/repair?