to take revenge on this evil landlord?

[BabbleBitch]

My sister has moved house at the end of last month after 7 years of renting from said landlord. She paid a deposit bond of £500 up front along with her first month's rent £500 on moving in. She and landlord got along well and she had no major problems with him during her tenancy.

At the beginning of June she gave him her notice that she was moving and he said he would be very sorry to lose her as she had been his best tenant.

As she gave her notice she told him that her friend wanted to rent the house after she had moved out and was ready to move in almost as soon as it was empty. He was very happy about this.

He increased the rent for her friend by £50 a month, fair enough as he had not increased the rent for seven years and everyone was happy.

She moved out on Saturday and met landlord at the house on Sunday as her friend was starting to redecorate it. Her friend intends to move in 2 weeks time.

After my sister asked the landlord for her deposit back he said that it was non-returnable as he would have to remove the laminate floors she had put in and the fireplaces she had put in as her friend didn't want them so he would have to pay to have them removed.

She was really pissed off and stressed out at being £500 out of pocket. I told her she should have witheld the final month's rent in hindsight.

She went down to her bank today to inform of a change of address and to cancel her standing order for the rent (yes she had forgotten to cancel it last month!)

It left her account today and is winging it's way to landlord so she informed him of this and asked him to return the money once he receives it. He said that she owed him that money for June as she paid rent one month in arrears(not true - paperwork to prove!)

She is now a grand out of pocket, skint and unable to pay her new rent! AArrgghh!

She wants to take legal action to get her money back. I think she has no chance. I have seen too many landlords get away with this!

She still has the keys - WIBU to get squatters in the house until he is out of pocket - I know someone who did this for several months before getting moved on - that'll show him!

Playing Devil's advocate a bit - I would say losing a £500 deposit in return for seven years without a rent rise is fair dos. Plus nearly all landlords charge something close to that amount to cover cleaning and any minor repairs ime.

The month's rent thing though is inexcusable - get thy sister to the small claims court.

I do not think the friend is to blame.

Tyler80 ?If the tenancy started 7 years ago it pre-dates the deposit protection scheme MrsTerryPratchett?

Not true. If she signed a new tenancy (as opposed to letting it run as a periodic tenancy) post 6th April 2007 the deposit must be protected if the gross rental is below £25,000.

The two things that really annoy me are piss taking Landlords and the miss-information that is thrown out on these threads and taken to be fact!!

The tenancy deposit laws are contained in Chapter 4, 212 ? 215 of the Housing Act 2004. What many of you don?t know is that because of the bad drafting in those sections it has been updated in Part 8 Chapter 6 ? section 184 of the Localism Act which came into force 6th April 2012.

The Landlord, under the new rules, has thirty days to register the deposit and provide the prescribe information. Failure to do so will result in in him being told to return the deposit and plus 1-3 times the amount.

OP complete a claim form and send it with a Letter before Action to the maggot Landlord giving him 48 hours to return your monies or the claim will go live, you will get judgement, place a caution on the register and tell every mother fucker you know what an arse he was.

RANT OVER

What a load of bollocks HipHop.

There are plenty of good private landlords that do their job properly and professionally. They aren't a charity though, they are running a business. There are as many shit tennants as there are shit landlords.

?What a load of bollocks HipHop?

For ever nice tenant I will show you ten maggot Landlords. They all think that the Laws of the land do not apply to them and the deposit is rightly there?s.

Just goes to prove there is no such thing as a NICE private landlord! Even the good ones invariably turn out to be shits

thanks for that generalisation,

we've never had any complaints, we have a waiting list,because we are known to be good landlords, but he ho we are still shits.

In 10 years of private renting I never once paid the last months rent for this very reason, and never had an issue over the damage deposit. I know people always say that there are some good landlords, but in ten years and 6 properties I never met a decent one.

Could your sister's friend return the money to her and take it out of the rent? Putting this in writing to the LL of course.
I wouldn't hand the keys to squatters, but I would be mentioning that you still have keys to the LL, whilst in the company of a burly friend. Then, court.

If the deposit wasn't in a protection scheme and she goes to small claims he will have to give her 3x the deposit. She should write to him reminding him she was not in arrears and of this fact and give him 14 days to sort it before she takes him to court. She will win for sure. He'll jump.

?he will have to give her 3x the deposit? MORE MISS_INFORMATION.

Read my post further up.

A couple of things spring to mind: if she has had 7 years without a rent rise she's done bloody well and it suggests her landlord isn't the evil bastard some people make him out to be. Also- has she got evidence in writing that the landlord agreed to her making these changes without the responsibility to return the property to its previous condition?

Surely all tenancy agreements state that the property must be returned to its original state. Blimey, I remember having to fill in every hole where I'd hung pictures in my renting days

It's an expectation that the property is returned in its original state, bar general wear and tear, unless something was otherwise agreed with the landlord.

I was a landlord for some years and had two fantastic tenants, and one utter shite of a tenant who thought it was ok to totally trash the place and pay no rent. Prior to that I rented myself for quite a few years, 15 properties in all, yet only two of these landlords were crap. Maybe some people have had bad experiences, I certainly have with the tenants from hell, but it's still pretty ignorant to tar every landlord with the same brush.

My sister was a landlord's dream tenant. She spent money on the house and left him with laminate flooring where there was nothing but bare asphalt, fireplaces where there were just bare walls and a brand-new built-in oven where there was just a hole in the kitchen.

She paid her rent in advance on the first working day of each month without delay. She gave him a month's notice that she was moving and put him in touch with his next tenant who was happy to pay the increased rent. She left it spotless and gleaming throughout, nothing broken and she had the carpets cleaned and crap removed.

She is devastated that he has treated her like this. She thought he was a decent bloke.

This LL deserves the tenant from Hell in future. Here's hoping the friend turns out to be the tenant from Pacific Heights!

Asphalt? As in the road surface? Where, in the living room?

I think she means bitumen, we had that in our old council house when I was a kid.

Meh, not keen on Michael Keaton, too much like NIcholas Can't Act For Toffee Cage for my liking

Does your sister still have the keys? If so, she should go in and remove the fireplace and the floor, as this is what's causing the issue. The landlord can't charge for wear and tear, he'll get a tax break for this. It sounds as though she'll need to go to the small claims court for the extra rent though, she needs to send him a letter (recorded delivery), with a request that this is refunded.

My landlord is nice.

Did the landlord give her a new tenancy agreement each year? Or even just one new tenancy agreement after she had put in the flooring and the fireplace?

If so, it is likely that he has waived any objections he could have made to the work, and he is stuck with it.

she has returned it to him in the condition it was in when he last let it to her - ie with the fireplace and flooring.

BTW amanspointofview Mon 02-Jul-12 19:23:45 is correct about the Localism Act, it has changed the law about deposits.

A few real points here. Firstly if she didn't get permission to do the work on the fireplace and flooring (and have it in writing) then there's little she can contest as the dilapidations deposit is held against changes to the property against the original inventory of contents and condition regardless if these are improvements to the property. Secondly, if she still has the keys, then she hasn't legally given up the property with vacant possession, which means she's still liable to pay rent. So, whilst he's falsely claiming that she paid the rent in arrears, he can still legally claim that the rent is owed anyway as keys=tenancy. (You'll find even reputable Letting Agents will charge you to return overpaid rent these days)

In my opinion, small claims court would be a waste of time and money, having worked in the Lettings industry and seen countless examples of dodgy landlords and tenants, going in to SCC for less than a grand is simply not worth the effort or the cost of making the claim (depending on how much the moral victory is worth to you). Plus you'd have to be pretty damn sure you'd win.

Sounds like an arsehole of a landlord, but frankly, I'd cut my losses and get myself (and my friend) away from the guy. I'd agree with a previous post that not having a rent increase for seven years is pretty good going (especially in the current economic climate). Get your friend to pull out before signing the new contract, this will leave him needing a tenant. A month without anyone in the property will cost him £550, that's probably the best moral victory you could achieve!

Can I just buck the trend here and stick up for our landlords?

We've been in current place just 3 years - moved in 10 days before dd2 arrived. In that time I have seen landlord twice. Once on day we moved in and once in February this year when he came to see what needed decorating/painting as he knew it hadn't been done for a good while!

Offered to replace carpets all way through and paint all way through too. I declined the carpets as with 3 young DCs, new carpets and spillages will give me bloody kittens!!!

Declined offer of painter too, agreed that we will paint it and freshen it all up in our own time, he will provide the materials.

He basically told us to do as we pleased within reason!

In three years we have sorted out central heating and plumbing issues ourselves (DH is a plumber) installed a power shower and generally looked after the place. DH has done tons of niggly little jobs which would have cost landlord a small fortune if we'd reported them through letting agent!

We've just signed for another three years here, and a verbal agreement that if the landlord ever chooses to sell they will give us first refusal.

He has coughed up for all materials, including two big radiators which perforated, no questions asked and in 3 years our rent has just increased by £20 a month!

So they're not all bad

Hope you get sorted op.

Depends on how good a friend is moving in, and how willing they are to get involved in calling landlord's bluff but...
Re the overpaid rent: could your sister very politely /innocently scan the tenancy clause re payment in advance, and mail LL "new tenant will pay her deposit money to me, and you can use the money I overpaid you - saves us having to return money". LL then at risk of losing new tenant if he pushes it, which will cost him more.

go to shelters website have just checked and it may interest your sis,landlord can only withhold deposit if he can prove financial loss.They have an advice line for private tenants.worth a try, good luck.

I am a lovely landlord :)

Today I let a girl out of her contract 5 months early because her boyfriend's done a runner.

I reduced another tenant's rent by £50 pm because he had done his sums wrong before moving in and was struggling.

I let a previous tenant run up £2k of unpaid rent when he lost his job and couldn't work out how to apply for HB.

OP, I'm sorry for your sister, this landlord is taking the piss. A short, sharp small claims court experience will hopefully sort him out. Good luck.

Much as it irks me to say that a man's point of view can be more reliable than that of many women, it so happens that amanspointofview is correct.

There is no reason why your dsis should be left out of pocket for either her deposit or for her overpayment of rent.

IME the civil Courts do not look kindly on landlords who fail to observe the law and she is best advised to to inform her ex-landlord in writing that unless the monies due to her are forthcoming within 7 days from the date of her letter/email, she will institute proceedings in the County Courts without further notice.

Your dsis's ex landlord truly is a maggot - and a number of other words also come to mind.

Tell the landlord that the rent that he just received was actually from your sister's friend, get her to just pay $50 next month and the rest to your sister. Not much you can do about deposit... landlords are bastards like that.

There appears to be considerable amount of muddled creative thinking exhibiting itself on this thead but if your dsis wants to see her money again (plus interest ) this is the way to go: www.moneyclaim.gov.uk