To be REALLY worried ablut this/

[ohbloodynora]

I have posted this in Legal aswell

We were new to letting property.... we had to rent our home out as we had no choice as it was in negative equity and couldn't sell. So here goes...

We didn't realise we had to protect the bond, we had tenancy agreement and took one month rent in advance plus 400 for bond.

At first, HB was paid to us as tenant got in to arrears straight away by not filling in HB forms. She finally caught up (only had 2 weeks in arrears by this point) and HB got paid direct to her. We then didn't recieve any rent from her until she was 4 more weeks in arrears and the council agreed to pay us again. She claimed she didn't recieve the HB during this period so I advised her to take it up with the council....she never did.

When she left she agreed to let us keep bond for arrears.

Council wrote to us both advising they had overpaid us by a few pounds, she got the same letter and is now disputing her arrears as she has misunderstood the letter.

I'm now worried sick, what can she do to us?

Send her and council breakdown of money's owed and moneys paid.

I've requested one be sent to us and one to her, I've also asked them to kog when I called them to chase payment!

get the money protected in a tenancy depsoit scheme asap

and send all correspondence to the council with copies of all payment info and copies of her correspondence with you.

I'm jsut selling my place that was rented out due to negative equity, being a landlord is a minefield if you don't know what you're doing!

Problem is she's moved out now and we have a new tenant in (but we are using an agency this time). Can I still get the bond protected at this late stage?

ah no, i didn't realise that........shit i don't know what you can do tbh, sorry no help

Budget three times the deposit for your penalty, and the entire deposit too. So four times what the deposit was, and contact the tenant quickly to come to an agreement so you don't have to pay all of it before lawyers advise her that she'll get it...

Case law is Da Costa Vs Pinter, you have to hope she doesn't know about it?

I don't think she will, she's only contacted us as she got a letter saying we'd been overpaid HB by a few pounds.

I was looking on a site before that said as long as we give bond back before court proceedings it wouldn't get to that?

So gutted, she owed us over 600 quid, but now we could end up paying her thousands :( I know it's our fault as we didn't know about protecting deposit, but is there nothing in our favour even if we can totally prove through the council that she didn't pay rent when it was paid to her?

Another thougt, if she successfully took us to court (which I doubt she would if it involved any hassle on her part) could we the counter sue her for not paying the rent?

I've just read on the shelter site that if she was to take us to court, she has to give us the opportunity to pay back deposit first, plus she would have to pay a fee for proceedings, so I'm a little less worried, but still....