Safety deposit scheme

samsung06

I had a friend of the family living at my property and she needed a tenancy agreement to claim universal credit to pay the rent, due to the height of Covid and me being new to the land lord system, I didn't put her deposit into a safety deposit scheme, which was stated in the tenancy agreement template that I have printed off for her. when she left the property there was a lot of damage, it was not cleaned, she had long term guests living there and she removed a lot of the kitchen items, so we both agreed that I would give her back half her deposit, a year later she has sent me a A solicitors letter claiming she wants 3 times the deposit plus  Compensation, I offered her one times her deposit back but her solicitor has said she wants more towards the top end otherwise she will take us to court, has this ever happened to anyone else and have you gone to court? And what was the outcome? Any help would be extremely useful 
thanks 

flaneurs_lobster

Why does your ex-tenant (and presumably ex-friend) think that they should be paid or compensated?

GrumpyDil

Because, if the deposit was not correctly registered tennant is entitled to up to three times the deposit as compensation plus deposit returned.

OP, not sure what the outcome of a court case would look like. Do you belong to one of the landlord associations who can provide advice?

flaneurs_lobster

GrumpyDil said:

Because, if the deposit was not correctly registered tennant is entitled to up to three times the deposit as compensation plus deposit returned.

Ah, didn't know this. Thanks.

Voyager2002

Once the tenant has left your property, there are fairly tight time limits within which such a claim has to be made. 

Visit the Shelter website for details, and be sure to check on the Shelter Legal section (which gives the fine detail that can make all the difference).

saajan_12

samsung06 said:

I had a friend of the family living at my property and she needed a tenancy agreement to claim universal credit to pay the rent, due to the height of Covid and me being new to the land lord system, I didn't put her deposit into a safety deposit scheme, which was stated in the tenancy agreement template that I have printed off for her. when she left the property there was a lot of damage, it was not cleaned, she had long term guests living there and she removed a lot of the kitchen items, so we both agreed that I would give her back half her deposit, a year later she has sent me a A solicitors letter claiming she wants 3 times the deposit plus  Compensation, I offered her one times her deposit back but her solicitor has said she wants more towards the top end otherwise she will take us to court, has this ever happened to anyone else and have you gone to court? And what was the outcome? Any help would be extremely useful 
thanks 

Okay, so this was a tenancy not a favour - you were charging rent, so the piece of paper is irrelevant. There was no relaxation to the deposit protection rules due to covid. That has a simple penalty of 1-3x the deposit, paid to the tenant. That is the compensation, so there's no compo on top, though the usual deposit / damages calcs are separate. 

When you gave back half, what exactly was agreed? How much was the cost of damages? Was the non protection known and was this in settlement of that as well? If so, you might be able to reopen that settlement if the ex tenant now goes to court. However depends on the exact wording and if you can prove it. 

However they will be able to claim something i n court for the penalty, so it might be worth negotiating. Given its not a simple paperwork issue and you actually never protected it, I'd think more than the minimum 1x deposit. However since you didn't withhold the deposit and run off with it, maybe slightly less than the maximum 3x deposit. Just my guess, I'd think 2-2.5x is where it could land up. 

theartfullodger

Pay her 2.3 times deposit & hope that ends your expensive lesson in being a landlord.

Strongly suggesst you get educated as a landlord : Probably cheaper in time & money than the alternative (ignorance).  I speak from experience - when I started, 2000, expensive, painful, complicated, long-drawn out problems ; Own goal by me! Oh the hubris...