Company let - deposit held - letter before action

Bluelagoon2022

Money not loamy!!

propertyrental

Bluelagoon2022 said:

The deposit was not protected as it was a company let contract. However I noticed the clause above re deposit on the contract and as it was stated on the contract and was not protected because it was actually a company let contract - can I use this to get my deposit back ? As it is in the contract and not protected could I apply to the deposit scheme for compensation ie 3 months deposit back.

aa I’m sure you are getting the gist of , the contract has many flaws and I have lost a lot of loamy due to estate agent/landlord lies 

If it's not proected, which scheme would you apply to and why would they get involved?

Re it being in the contract, see my earlier reply!

Bluelagoon2022

Wrong wording , I should have said apply to county court not scheme.

im just unsure whether I could do that as it’s not an AST , not sure it would have any legs to stand on even though it’s in the contract

saajan_12

Bluelagoon2022 said:

The deposit was not protected as it was a company let contract. However I noticed the clause above re deposit on the contract and as it was stated on the contract and was not protected because it was actually a company let contract - can I use this to get my deposit back ? As it is in the contract and not protected could I apply to the deposit scheme for compensation ie 3 months deposit back.

aa I’m sure you are getting the gist of , the contract has many flaws and I have lost a lot of loamy due to estate agent/landlord lies 

For ASTs, there's a 1-3x penalty amount which is very punitive, designed to punish LLs that have failed in their duties to AST tenants. Your company doesn't have an AST, so isn't eligible to the protections that entails.

You have a contractual term for a deposit to be protected only, not to any other legislation re penalties. Best case, you can claim actual damages from the deposit not being protected (eg if you had court costs to claim the money back). Worst case, the judge would determine the clause was unenforceable due to an inability to perform, as (I think) TDS doesn't support commercial deposits. 

Bluelagoon2022

Great information thank you so much! That’s very clear 

SiliconChip

Bluelagoon2022 said:

@propertyrental

Could you help with another question please? Although this is not an AST contract and deposits do not need to be held by a deposit scheme, , it states the following on our contract - 

 ‘ The Deposit: £***to be held by the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (“TDS Custodial”) and placed within the nominated Deposit Protection Scheme as stakeholder . At the end of the Tenancy, the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (“TDS Custodial”) shall return the Deposit to the Tenant subject to the possible deductions set out in this Agreement.

As it states This and the deposit was not held , do I have some legal ground ti stand on here?

I suspect you'll find that either the landlord or the agent has used a standard rental agreement, amended it to take into account that it's a company let, but forgotten to remove this clause. I imagine that if it was brought up in court the position would be that your company would be expected to have done it's own due diligence (either through knowledge within the company or by seeking legal advice) on the validity of terms in the contract so that any that do not apply could be struck out.

propertyrental

Bluelagoon2022 said:

Wrong wording , I should have said apply to county court not scheme.

im just unsure whether I could do that as it’s not an AST , not sure it would have any legs to stand on even though it’s in the contract

As I said earlier:

was the deposit protected or not?
....
If not, there was potentially a breach of contract and you could sue for any consequential losses you incurred. But I'm not sure what those might be.


The non return of the deposit appears to be as a result of alleged damage, which is a separate matter. You could sue for the deposit. The LL would doubtless defend, claiming damage, and the court would decide.