To think lots of landlords see a tenants deposit money as rightfully theirs?

[Strawbroke]

Third (and last, whoop!) time I've left a rental property after leaving the marital home 4 years ago.

Every single one has forced me to use the dispute service tovretirn my deposit, even though I have tried to negotiate with them. First two I agreed to them taking half as I was a bit of a wet fish but nothwanted it all. Forced me to go to dispute. They got half. After loads of stress and a delay of 3 months.

This last tenancy was a 20 month tenancy and I was determined to get the house perfect on leaving. 5 adults cleaned the place to pristine levels and i mean or, we covered everywhere. After final inspection from letting agent she said it was in good condition but needed extra cleaning so I agreed to £45 for cleaning. They then proceeded to come back over the next 4 weeks to say they wanted professional carpet cleaning at £255. I said no way, the carpets were as new. So the LL said okay, I'll settle the carpet cleaning bill but you owe me £180 for a new oven door. Which the letting agent broke and admitted via email! Again I said no. Then they added £150 for painting the bannister and handrail in the hallway. It was unpainted when I moved in. I offered £55 as goodwill. They refused it. £100 not enough! At this point I just said give me an itemised list of everything you want to claim off me, they ignored me for two weeks so I had to raise a dispute.

Landlord has put in a claim for 650 for carpet cleaning, oven door, handrail and replacement light bulbs! So with the £650 basically. My entire bond.

AIBU to think a lot of landlords see deposits as an entitlement to keep? The property was let within days so obviously was in great condition! I had to create my own check out report as they didn't bother doing one. It's so frustrating and I was a great tenant. The LL even said when I moved out. I am so glad I've finally managed to buy and not have to deal with this anymore!

Our tenant left the place a mess when they moved out, but there was no way it cost the whole deposit to put it right, taking into consideration normal wear and tear and not being entitled to betterment. Unscrupulous agents and landlords who don't want to spend any money maintaining their assets perpetuate this kind of thing. Tenants have to stand up to them and raise disputes. It looks to me from the number of threads about this kind of thing that still many landlords aren't complying with the law and too many tenants feel they are not in a strong enough position to assert their legal rights.

@swingofthings you’re absolutely right, there is an unfair generalisation that all landlords are money grabbing investors! I am a landlord myself and became one when I moved in with my oh, I wanted to retain my old house for a number of reasons, but by keeping it, it ends up costing me, firstly to purchase a property with my OH I’ve had to pay a tonne of stamp duty, once rent has been paid I end up with little, after mortgage, agent fees, and loans. The property also has cost me about £5000 in repairs in the last year, so definitely no profit! I’ve had tenants come and go over the last few years, the first tenants left the property in pristine condition and therefore the whole deposit was returned. The last tenant that left, left the property in a really grubby condition, oven needed cleaning, toilets and bathroom were left in a right state. The house needed bottoming, therefore I claimed for the cleaning costs, as it took me a whole weekend to clean as I had new tenants lined up and I did not want to hand it to them in the state it was left in!

Op - the dps should side with you if what you have put is correct, I just wanted to let you know that we are not all money grabbers. :-)

And maybe one day you'll find yourself a 'LL too. I don't know why you make such a fuss about it though since he hasn't got your money yet and you have a system that will allow you to get your money back if indeed it is deemed you've done nothing wrong. Your LL can't take your money that's the whole point of the protection service.

So go through it and see what they, not your LL, decide you should get back. It's there to protect both parties.

I just it's not fair that LL all seem to get tarred with the same "unscrupulous, money grabbing" brush. Many of us are not wealthy profit making business people who view tenants as cash machines.

We bought a property at the peak of the prices and lost massively when the market crashed in the recession. We got to a point where we had to move for work and had no choice but to become landlords and rent ourselves as it would literally have cost us tens of thousands to sell. For 5 years it has been a significant extra stress. We make a loss each month and are constantly worrying about being financially responsible for two properties. When a tenant doesn't pay rent or leaves the property damaged it's not just a minor thing that we can easily absorb. Having to do repairs (beyond the reasonable wear and tear) between each tenant is a real problem but is something we always do as we want the new tenant to have a nice home. One tenant asked us if we could paint the property before she moved in. It was looking quite dated so we agreed. She stayed 6 months and trashed the place. Flat and garden needed completely cleared, and there were hundreds of pounds worth of repairs needing done. We won the deposit disputed but to be honest it didn't even touch the amount we had to spend in repairing what she had done.

I don't understand why tenants think it's ok to not clean a property properly when they move out? My properties are mega clean so that's how they should be returned. What should be done by tenants at the end of the contract is all in the tenancy agreement.

Get an inventory done by the way state agents
This should avoid dispute

I never see any rental deposit money as it is held by the estate agent

I also never use it for anything

We haven't been given an inventory. We moved in 2 months ago. They keep saying that they'll post one out. What do we do?

Itsy You don't HAVE to do anything. If they do't have an inventory for the beginning of your tenancy then they will find it almost impossible to prove you caused any damage.

So send them an email stating that you have asked X times and they have not provided you with a current inventory. Then leave it. You will have a paper trail to show they do not have an agreed inventory so, if they magic one up at the end of your tenancy you can dispute it - arbitrators really don't like an inventory you can cast doubt upon.

If they do send you one look very carefully, make sure any and all pictures have the date embedded in them, check that it tallies with the property as you have it... Add "Date Received" to the front of it then add notes, also dated, to any and everything you disagree with and take a picture of the item/place you dispute. Send them a copy of your annotated inventory. That then becomes the agreed schedule of condition.

If you suspect it is not up to date and they have cobbled it together from a previous tenancy simply say so and reject it.

I came on Mumsnet for a bit of light relief after spending the last few long days, sorting the return of a rental flat from a tenant who has been there 3 years,
she met me on Thursday to hand over and l have just an hour ago transfered £3,300.... her entire deposit. We are planning to meet for coffee soon.

Last year three sharers did over £9000 of damage to a newly refurbished flat by repeatedly blocking and overflowing the toilet with kitchen roll, and flooding the downstairs with sewage...3 times....at one point l was so worried about losing my lovely downstairs tenant, l spent 6 hours scrubbing and sterilising her flooded kitchen, when she and her husband were away...... cleaners wouldn't touch it,
their deposit was £3,200,
despite photographing everything, having a professional inventory on check in and all the countless plumbers reports documented, l was only given back a measley £1,800 by the DPS.

It makes me pretty angry to hear so many say that LL treat the deposit as their own as many like me do not,
there are some ruthless, dishonest LL , and just as many horrible dishonest tenants.

One answer is a voluntary website register for LL, and tenants, where current tenants can review LL and vice versa.

I would like to check my potential tenants out and would be more than happy for my tenants to do the same.

I used to share with a friend, he decided after two years he no longer wanted to share. He gave me the option of staying there and him moving out and vice versa. I couldn’t afford it on my own so decided to move out. He stayed on and the agency did the end of tenancy inspection with him still there. The tried to charge me (and him) £50 as there was a spillage on the laminate floor near the front door, I told them to do one as a)they had no proof it was me as I’d moved but SOMEONE ELSE WAS STILL THERE and b) if they could show me an itemised bill that it cost £50 to wipe up coffee or whatever I’d gladly pay it.

Next place - awful, full of damp/mould and no GCH just storage heaters which did the sum total of fuck all in heating and drying out said dampness. Didn’t have a washer so didn’t dry clothes etc, only thing I did was breathe. Couldn’t leave window open as I lived in Kent and worked in London, flat was ground floor, windows did not have trickle vents. The whole building was scheduled to have damp proofing work done but my LL was holding up the whole thing as she wanted to use her own builders for her bit, wouldn’t have worked in a practical sense and required all other 9 owners to agree (which they refused to). I left early after many discussions, sending photos of my ruined clothes, explaining I was having to store my possessions in plastic boxes in the living room (the only room not affected by damp as it only had one small wall that was an outside wall). She took me to dispute as I refused to pay the re-marketing costs (which just happened to be the exact same amount as my deposit), they awarded 75-25 in her favour. I had sent many, many photos of the damp inside, my ruined clothes and how structurally poor the building was but all they said was they looked at whether I had broken the agreement, not the reasons why. The agents also said I had to pay for the ‘damage’ I’d caused by having Sky and a phone line installed (there was an existing dish,so they just drilled a couple of holes for the wires and reconnected it). I told them to whistle on that as I’d actually added value at my expense, as without that there was no way to watch TV, have internet or make calls (mobile reception was very poor), they didn’t pursue that one.

Thankfully DH and I own outright now!

There are still the odd good landlords out there. We must have been very lucky! We stayed in our last rented place for eight years, so obviously there was a fair bit of wear and tear. We'd agreed to an extended "cleaning fee" when we moved in, in exchange to being allowed to have our pet. When we were moving out, the landlord looked around and said everything looked alright, and as they would expect after a long tenancy with no particular work being done by them. I brought up the "pet cleaning fee", and she laughed it off and said not to worry about it - they had simply had some bad experiences in the past, and our pet had obviously not wrecked the place. Full deposit paid back promptly. That's how it should go, surely?

This happened to me the twice I’ve rented privately. First time he charged me for garden cleaning and bins emptying (garden was spotless and BIN MEN TAKE THE BINS??), also charged me for light bulb replacement, conservatory roof needed clearing of the vines, a patch of the lawn wasn’t growing grass so it apparently needed relawning. Entire deposit gone.
Second time the gate lock was faulty (by faulty he meant rusty - as though I can help rust forming), garden cleaning (it was hard standing, winter, the tiles were just a bit mucky from the rain etc. Just needed a quick blast with the jet wash), “emptying the house” (we left the bin there, empty and bleached, but forgot to take it.), emptying the garage (we left the shelves), but my favourite one was the water damage to the floor... water damage from a burst pipe when we first moved in and they apologised for and fixed it... and we had to pay for the damage! They said it wasn’t caused by that it was right under it.

Anyway, yes, absolutely they do. Chancing cheeky fuckers imho

DuchessThingy the spillage occurred AFTER I moved, it wasn’t there they day I moved out, they did the inspection on the Monday after I’d moved on the Saturday. I don’t see how I was responsible for what occurred after I’d left and someone else (the person I’d shared with decided to stay on his own) was still living there

As for the Sky dish, if you read my post it was already there! I don’t think it had been the previous occupiers as there was no TV aerial points even, I asked the agents in a phone call if I could install it and they verbally agreed (I realise I should have got it in writing but they weren’t the best as responding to emails). All the other flats had or had had dishes at some point, so no issues with planning permission, they connected me to a dish that was there already. I understand what you’re saying (my previous flat said you needed permission for dishes but they installed cabling for Virgin Media when they built them, this was a really old building that had been a huge house split into flats) but was I just supposed to not watch TV? Or use the internet? Or speak to people? I argued this with the agent and they waived the charge. I genuinely didn’t know about the removal if it wasn’t pre-existing though, however I would have been happy with just Freeview but there wasn’t even an aerial point and having Sky installed worked out just as much money. Thank God I can now do what I like in my house!

I'm a very good LL. Was told by my last tenants that they have never had such a good LL.

Didn't stop me getting screwed over by two of my tenants, one of whom it took me six months to get out, going through the courts, while he paid no rent and trashed the place.

Whilst I agree that tenants need better protection from bad LLs. LLs also need better protection and a quicker way of removing bad tenants.

Just as a counter-balance, I rented briefly between selling my old house and buting my new house. The landlords (a couple) couldnt have been more lovely.

The house had new carpets, was freshly painted and very clean when i moved in and they didnt inspect at all the whole time i was here. They said “we can tell we wont need to inspect just by knowing what sort of a person you are.” They’d met me three times at most.

Remember that these career landlords acquire money from hard working people while doing little themselves.

I don't blame them I blame the system but the fact remains they are basically parasites.

They tend to think, in my experience, that they are perfectly entitled to all the free money they get due to the work they do to exploit useful people and the work they did in the past to get where they were even though their tenants still work and they do not anymore.

So it makes sense they see the deposit as money you may yet swindle out of them and they are on the hunt for it,

I have learnt from bitter experience of CF LLs that however nice they are when you're handing over a big wedge of cash at the start of a tenancy, they soon change when it's meant to be handed back.

I never, ever phone a LL or agent. I either email or text. Paper trails in my last rental stopped me losing a substantial sum of money (to me) and because I sent them copies of these emails, i didnt even have to go through adjuducation.
I always take my own notes, photos and inventory on check-in, after one landlord told me on check out the garden had benches and all manner of things that weren't there at all. I also had a Landlord involve Police as he said I stole his fridge freezer- sadly for him I had proof it was mine as I had an email from him confirming what white goods were in the property, and the fridge freezer wasn't on the list. I also had a receipt for it.
If at any point they get builders or contractors or anyone in during a tenancy, log it, dates times etc and how long this work took to take place. I had roofers in just after moving in to my last property, they wrecked the carpet in the upstairs hall, I actually emailed their company and copied the letting agent in. Didn't stop the CFs trying to charge me for new carpet on the entire floor. I learnt the hard way when the one with the fridge freezer told me verbally the carpet was awful and I could take it up and sand the floorboards underneath, then charged me £850 to replace the carpet as I had no proof.

Not all LLs or agents are dodgy but you have to protect yourself. A lot go on the assumption you won't be able to argue with them or raise a dispute, but do it. I've borrowed money from family before as I refuse to be ripped off again.

Parasites? Because they’re providing a service that people want? Why such hatred towards lls? If people can’t afford to buy, then surely having reasonable priced (below market value for the area) rentals is essential? Where would people live otherwise?

@Maelstrop
Hahahahahahahaha
Below market rental. Blimey. That cracked me up.

all the claims listed on page 1 would be thrown out. deposit belongs to tenant and landlord has to prove damage. Very difficult to do.

I have kept a full deposit once as the wrecker did actually give in. paid about a quarter of the damage.

top tip - dont rent a dump from a crook.You may need to move out of London as there is no enforcement of standards there, sorry.