Landlord is charging extortionate cleaning (£690), damage (£662) and Gardening (£450) fees and it do

lachie_b

I've recently moved out of a 6-bedroom house with 5 other people and desperately need help and advice!

We obviously cleaned everything as well as we could including vacuuming, dusting, deep cleaning etc. The house was quite old and run down when we first got there 12 months ago, however (stupidly) we didn't take any photos of the house after we left. The letting company took pictures when we moved in but it was sent to us on Wetransfer and the link has expired so we can't access them. We have now received the following price breakdown from the landlord for the deposit:

Professional cleaning: £690.00
Breakdown: Cleaning + carpet washing required (Again they were very old already )

Damages & works needed (Labour & Materials): £662.00
Breakdown:

• 1 bulb entrance hallway £25 (Seems crazy to charge that for a lightbulb)
  - Living room broken ikea klippan sofa - £250+40 delivery + 120 disposal of old sofa (understandable as it was broken however 120 to take it away?)
  - Shower curtain first floor bathroom - £29 (seems crazy, it was slightly mouldy but not crazy surely a new one isn't that expensive)
  - First floor bedroom 5 - sticker damage to bedroom door and next to bedroom door - £69
  - First floor bedroom 6 ==> Led striker damage - £129

Gardening costs:
£450.00 Breakdown: Required Gardening (back and front yard would've needed a mow, we trimmed the hedge out the front)

This gave a grand total of £1,800 of costs to be deducted from the total deposit (£3,460) which is almost half of the deposit.

However, they emailed the following:

"As a sign of good will (HA), and in order to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion, the landlord has proposed, without prejudice at this stage, to give you all a one-time discount, for the damages and works, resulting in a reduced TOTAL deduction amount of £ 834.00.

If you agree to this generous one time offer, the deposit balance will be released to your account as swiftly as possible. If you do not accept the landlord’s reduced offer, and wish to contest the figures, the landlord will be claiming for the Full Costs of £ 1,802.00"

Of course, this is a 50% reduction in costs so realistically for now we are arguing whether a 50% reduction in the costs is reasonable (Eg can they still charge £345 for gardening).

The other occupants want to just accept the offer as they need the money but I just think for how much they are charging they shouldn't be allowed to do this.

Again any and all help will be greatly appreciated

HampshireH

You need to all be on the same page. Then request it back via DPS if that's where it's kept follow their process ensuring you upload all your evidence when asked.

However £834 between 5 of you in next to nothing in the grand scheme of things and it may be worth just going with the other 4 so not to cause issues there. That will depend on the nature of your relationships I expect.

Why didn't you download the photos/inventory when it was sent to you as evidence

Mr.Generous

I don't understand why you didn't replace the shower curtain and sofa, you knew they were damaged and that the landlord would charge. If you think landlords prices are too high then don't chance it. Before you leave if you want the deposit back do everything you can. I've had many tenants get deposit back despite some minor damage because they made a real effort. Leaving broken or damaged stuff for me to sort out, not having carpets cleaned means I will make deductions. You don't like my charges for removing rubbish? Guess what - I don't like doing it either!!

saajan_12

I'll go through the items (changed your comments to normal font and mine to bold). 

For the items you acknowledge (eg light bulb, sofa, shower curtain, garden lawn) the charges sound fine, if anything undercharged based on the 50% off. Those total £914 without the discount. 
For the others (eg cleaning, damage in bedrooms) its less clear. Your challenge would be on the pictures which is  a gamble. Given the above, I'd bet there were some areas of cleaning missed, so you probably do owe some of this total £888.  

So the question is the lions share of £914 for the bits you agree (lets estimate 75%) plus some of £888 (lets estimate 40%) then you very roughly end up over £1000 plus the hassle of debating it and sending proof back and forth. Their offer probably isn't as generous as they make out but still pretty good.. I'd take it. 

lachie_b said:

I've recently moved out of a 6-bedroom house with 5 other people and desperately need help and advice!

We obviously cleaned everything as well as we could including vacuuming, dusting, deep cleaning etc. The house was quite old and run down when we first got there 12 months ago, however (stupidly) we didn't take any photos of the house after we left. The letting company took pictures when we moved in but it was sent to us on Wetransfer and the link has expired so we can't access them. We have now received the following price breakdown from the landlord for the deposit:

Professional cleaning: £690.00
Breakdown: Cleaning + carpet washing required (Again they were very old already ) - this doesn't give much info on what areas were unclean beyond just the carpet. But halving the £690 is 17 hrs @ £20ph or 2 days which doesn't go far for a large 6 bed house, getting into the corners of shelves, appliances, wiping down walls, etc etc. Could easily be higher. 

Damages & works needed (Labour & Materials): £662.00
Breakdown:

• 1 bulb entrance hallway £25 (Seems crazy to charge that for a lightbulb) - this was an easy thing you could have done.. if that's missed, then how much did you really clean / sort? For the LL to now pay someone to buy and replace the right bulb, £20 doesn't sound high. 
  - Living room broken ikea klippan sofa - £250+40 delivery + 120 disposal of old sofa (understandable as it was broken however 120 to take it away?) - yes, £120 for waste removal is about right, maybe low.. you could have arranged something with the council for less, but the LL isn't resident there so it would be commercial waste which is expensive. They do need to account for depreciation, as they had at least 1 year use, maybe more out of the sofa. If it could have lasted 6 years but only lasted 2, then deduct 2/6 ie 33%, so total is £273. Do you know how old the sofa was? 50% discount probably covers this. 
  - Shower curtain first floor bathroom - £29 (seems crazy, it was slightly mouldy but not crazy surely a new one isn't that expensive) - again something you could have sourced and fitted. It takes 15 min just to string these up, plus the cost of it - what's crazy? Maybe you need to look up some prices. They don't have to get the rock bottom option, but something akin to what was there. 
  - First floor bedroom 5 - sticker damage to bedroom door and next to bedroom door - £69 - what's the work to be done here? If its prepping and repainting, then this is reasonable at 100%
  - First floor bedroom 6 ==> Led striker damage - £129 - no idea what this is

Gardening costs:
£450.00 Breakdown: Required Gardening (back and front yard would've needed a mow, we trimmed the hedge out the front) - entirely depends on how big the gardens are. Why didn't you mow if you knew it needed doing? 

This gave a grand total of £1,800 of costs to be deducted from the total deposit (£3,460) which is almost half of the deposit.

However, they emailed the following:

"As a sign of good will (HA), and in order to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion, the landlord has proposed, without prejudice at this stage, to give you all a one-time discount, for the damages and works, resulting in a reduced TOTAL deduction amount of £ 834.00.

If you agree to this generous one time offer, the deposit balance will be released to your account as swiftly as possible. If you do not accept the landlord’s reduced offer, and wish to contest the figures, the landlord will be claiming for the Full Costs of £ 1,802.00"

Of course, this is a 50% reduction in costs so realistically for now we are arguing whether a 50% reduction in the costs is reasonable (Eg can they still charge £345 for gardening). - presumably you mean £345 for cleaning? Yes that sounds cheap. 

The other occupants want to just accept the offer as they need the money but I just think for how much they are charging they shouldn't be allowed to do this.

Again any and all help will be greatly appreciated

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've moved this to the part of the forum that deals with landlord/tenant issues

Bookworm105

I'm sorry but you need to understand that £25 to change a lightbulb is not "excessive" as a person has to be paid for their totality of their time travelling to and from the property and doing the work and someone has to be paid to administer booking that tradesperson

for the other replacement items, especially the sofa, they are not entitled to charge new for old. Their charge must reflect the age of the item, but a disposal charge would be allowed in full since that is what it is. The list price of an ikea klippan sofa on the ikea website is between £250 - £299, so they must be made to justify the "full"  £250.

It is doubtful that a cheap qualify sofa like that would have a "useful life" of 6 years so knocking £50 off (ie 1/6th) seems wrong unless they can prove the sofa was brand new when you moved in and so has only had 1 years use. In reality I'd expect the deposit service dispute people to say its life would be more like 4 years and so the claim would be for much less than £250 + delivery + disposal

£450 for gardening again understand it from the perspective of what would a contractor charge. It is not just labour rate for hours worked. Their charge would include contribution towards machinery used, the staff that admin the contractor, and the cost (time to take there + commercial waste tip fee) of any waste disposal 

have you read your actual deposit protection scheme rules regarding how to dispute charges?
Your only options are:
1. accept the charge as is,
2. negotiate directly with LL
or
3.raise a formal dispute with the scheme