Deposit Protection scheme adjudication

marcushudson

We recently received an adjudication from the DPS. The main issue was with a 3 year old oven where we agreed that we damaged the hob - a plastic toy was put on the hob by one of our children and the melting toy created a 2cm circle where the hob glass melted to a depth of 1-2mm. The hob still worked perfectly. The adjudication was that a new replacement oven was required, so the award was that the oven had a 10 year life so there was 7 years of life left and the depreciated value was therefore 7/10 of the original cost. This is a very generous award as the depreciation in the early years is always higher and the same model on various second hand goods sites is around 25% of the original cost.

I can understand that for the next tenants they may not like seeing a damaged hob and it is possible that the landlord/letting agent might replace the oven. However, I would be surprised if they do as we came across various damaged items when we started our tenancy but we made sure that everything was covered on the check-in report and I imagine this is what will happen with any new tenants - the original oven will remain in place and the damage will be noted in the check-in report. The net result is that the letting agent will pocket the adjudication money. I can imagine this is the standard practice for letting agents - raise a large claim for damages and then let the adjudicator decide how much they get and what they get is a bonus. In our case the letting agent invented some expensive cleaning and painting costs which we disputed and the adjudicator agreed with us.

The message of this story is to be wary of sharp practices to earn a little extra income through inflated claims when the tenancy finishes. Be very careful to ensure the check-in report is correct and every tiny problem is noted. Also try and make sure you are involved in the check-out process. Despite every effort to be involved with the check-out process we did not get to see the report until the dispute resolution process had started. The agents trick here seems to be to take ambiguous/unclear pictures for the check-in report and then take very detailed close-ups on the check-out report designed to imply that something has happened between the two reports when this is not the case.

With the above moan off my chest the one question I am not sure about which I hope someone knows is whether with the award of the depreciated cost of the oven that I now technically own the oven and so can collect it from the letting agent?

PRAISETHESUN

Your agreement is with the landlord, not the letting agent, so it ultimately them who will be "pocketing" the money as you put it. I'm unsure of the exact legalities, but I'm fairly certain the LL still owns the oven and the money you've paid is simply to compensate them for the damage you've caused, not to actually purchase the oven. It's ultimately up to the LL if they choose to use that money to actually repair the damage or not.

silvercar

The adjudication is to protect tenants. In this case they decided you were at fault. Nothing much you can do about. You caused damage to the hob beyond normal wear and tear, you need to pay.

Move on and just be grateful it was the kid's toy on a hot hob and not their hand!

DullGreyGuy

marcushudson said:
 The adjudication was that a new replacement oven was required, so the award was that the oven had a 10 year life so there was 7 years of life left and the depreciated value was therefore 7/10 of the original cost. This is a very generous award as the depreciation in the early years is always higher and the same model on various second hand goods sites is around 25% of the original cost.

Its not depreciation but loss of use hence its lost evenly throughout the lifespan in the same way if you owned the oven and it had broken-down after a couple of years the merchant could only reduce your refund for the use you already had from it and not just give you the secondhand value of the item. 

marcushudson said:
The net result is that the letting agent will pocket the adjudication money. I can imagine this is the standard practice for letting agents - raise a large claim for damages and then let the adjudicator decide how much they get and what they get is a bonus. In our case the letting agent invented some expensive cleaning and painting costs which we disputed and the adjudicator agreed with us.

It's the landlord not the letting agency that gets it and no, it's not standard practice. Having rented dozens of places only on one occasion did the letting agent suggest reducing the returned deposit which they claimed was for some highlighter mark on the kitchen vinyl flooring and some wax on the rear of a curtain. Whilst I somewhat dispute both of these their proposed charge was £3.75 for both of the issues and so wasnt going to waste my time arguing about it. 

Similar to most classes of insurance, the insurer (the tenant in your case) is responsible for paying for the damages concerned but its totally at the discretion of the compensated party what they choose to use the compensation for. 

caprikid1

This is quite simple, you damaged an item through carelessness and you were charged accordingly.

No one works on depreciation in a non linear way that would be an impossible task to calculate.

This is no scam this is just how it works. The adjudication scheme is there to protect tenants but it does not mean you can damage the property beyond reasonable wear and tear and not be charged.

"Be very careful to ensure the check-in report is correct and every tiny problem is noted"

I did not read that you were being charged for anything you had not damaged ?

marcushudson

Thanks for the various comments although some seem to have missed some of the points I made. I explained that we acknowledged that we damaged the oven and accept the adjudication that there are more damages to pay. But, my post is basically questioning the amount of the damages compared to the actual damage done and the final question was to try and understand if the award of damages meant that as the letting agent has now received full value for oven then what is the status of the damaged oven.

The legal position on damages is to return the injured party to the same position as if the tort had not occurred. However the position is that the letting agent has received 100% of the cost of the oven either through rental (30%) or through damages (70%) which now allows them to replace the oven with a new one but they are also in possession of the damaged oven as well which means they are in a different/better position than before the tort.

To cover some other points, the action was brought by the letting agent and not the landlord so maybe they have an agreement with the LL. I appreciate that straight line depreciation is simple to understand but is also not accurate in this case.
@caprikid1 - It was not carelessness that caused the damage; we accept that there should be a cost but it was not fair; we were charged for other items that we disputed - cleaning charges at an hourly rate of £28 and painting. Both of which we rejected and this was accepted by the adjudicator.

Perhaps I have been a bit harsh in saying this is a scam that is perpetrated by all letting agents but in our case the letting agent was definitely at fault. We were fortunate to be able to speak to 2 previous tenants who now live in the same village and they had similar problems with the agent which is why we wanted to be involved in the check out report visit for which we were constantly ignored by the agent.

It is good that there is an adjudication process but in our case it seems to have worked against us. It is only a few hundred quid and over the course of the rental is relatively small, but that's not the point!

deannagone

You had the option of buying another hob at 25% of the original cost.  It may have worked but if the glass was damaged that severely it might have caused unseen damage, it may have been dangerous to use, you didn't have it inspected so don't know.  You devalued the hob, one way or another you had to pay for the damage that devalued it.  At least careless use was in play to cause this damage.

propertyrental

The letting agent is simply the landlord's .... ahem! .... 'agent'.

It is the LL who receives any amount the adjudicator awards. The agent just facilitates this on the LL's behalf as that's what the LL pays him to do.

Whether it was deliberate or carelessness is irrelevant. It is clearly not 'fair wear and tear' so as the adjudicator has rightly ruled, you are liable.

The calculation method used is standard practice. In the bad old days the LL might have simply claimed/billed for a brand new replacement hob.

saajan_12

marcushudson said:

The legal position on damages is to return the injured party to the same position as if the tort had not occurred. However the position is that the letting agent has received 100% of the cost of the oven either through rental (30%) or through damages (70%) which now allows them to replace the oven with a new one but they are also in possession of the damaged oven as well which means they are in a different/better position than before the tort.

Well the legal position is that damaged oven has £0 value - to extract anything would cost more to transport, entertain 2nd hand buyers, etc. Arguably it has negative value because it costs money to dispose of. That plus the low assumption on the useful life @ 10 years, plus effort in replacing the oven - you're coming out on top, even after any considerations for non linear depreciation. 

newsgroupmonkey_

I'm normally very supportive of silly claims that Landlords make.

In this case, it's absolutely clear. You don't decide when the depreciation of an oven takes place. The rules say that an oven should last 10 years. That means for every year of its life, it depreciates 10%.

Thems the rules. You signed up for them. You can't make up arbitrary rules to how that depreciation should be made.