Moved out 8 month ago, Letting agent trying to charge?

BobT36

anselld said:

diego_94 said:

Anyone can try and obtain money from anyone, I could take you to court to say that you owe me money for something, but I wouldn't get very far!

Your defense if this ever happened is that the process from the deposite company was followed and they found in your favour, end of.

It is not necessarily "end of".  If damages were caused and the Landlord has sufficient evidence then they can claim (and win if the evidence is sound) for up to six years after the tenancy has ended, regardless of what the DPS has ruled.   

What's the point of the DPS process, then? 

anselld

BobT36 said:

anselld said:

diego_94 said:

Anyone can try and obtain money from anyone, I could take you to court to say that you owe me money for something, but I wouldn't get very far!

Your defense if this ever happened is that the process from the deposite company was followed and they found in your favour, end of.

It is not necessarily "end of".  If damages were caused and the Landlord has sufficient evidence then they can claim (and win if the evidence is sound) for up to six years after the tenancy has ended, regardless of what the DPS has ruled.   

What's the point of the DPS process, then? 

I don't know, it is probably the case of half-baked legislation.  The protection and information parts of the process were made mandatory, but the dispute resolution process is entirely voluntary where either party can opt for Court instead.   

CSI_Yorkshire

BobT36 said:

anselld said:

diego_94 said:

Anyone can try and obtain money from anyone, I could take you to court to say that you owe me money for something, but I wouldn't get very far!

Your defense if this ever happened is that the process from the deposite company was followed and they found in your favour, end of.

It is not necessarily "end of".  If damages were caused and the Landlord has sufficient evidence then they can claim (and win if the evidence is sound) for up to six years after the tenancy has ended, regardless of what the DPS has ruled.   

What's the point of the DPS process, then? 

Like any of the commercial arbitration schemes, the courts expect (hope) you to have used them first and can use DPS rulings as part of the evidence.  They also keep hundreds of cases out of the already busy courts - can you imagine the nonsense if every check-out inventory dispute needed to go to court?

doodling

Hi,

BobT36 said:

anselld said:

diego_94 said:

Anyone can try and obtain money from anyone, I could take you to court to say that you owe me money for something, but I wouldn't get very far!

Your defense if this ever happened is that the process from the deposite company was followed and they found in your favour, end of.

It is not necessarily "end of".  If damages were caused and the Landlord has sufficient evidence then they can claim (and win if the evidence is sound) for up to six years after the tenancy has ended, regardless of what the DPS has ruled.   

What's the point of the DPS process, then? 

1. To address the imbalance in power between the tenant and landlord.  Previously in any kind of dispute the tenant had to go to court to retrieve their deposit, now it is decided by an independant third party and the tenant is generally spared the cost and time of the court process.

2. To minimise the number of deposit related disputes that the court system has to deal with as the legal process is slower and more expensive than the deposit ADR process.

The landlord is free to take it to court if he wants to.  The "right" way to take it to court would have been to tell the DPS that they were taking it to court which would have stopped the process until the court case concluded (or a certain time elapsed without a court case being started).

The landlord has chosen a different path which is to allow the DPS process to happen and then start court proceedings.  That is not ideal for the landlord as the court will understandably be wondering why they did that and therefore might think that the landlord may not be acting reasonably.  Whilst that shouldn't affect the outcome of the case, it is never a good strategy to upset the judge hearing it.

It should be noted that if the landlord is trying to claim more that the deposit held by the DPS then court is the only way to go for them (but as noted above, they should have told the DPS that that is what they were doing).