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!

" 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."

be lovely if that could be avoided but.....
and there is more enforcement in England than in Wales.
For example, in England, if you go to housing standards with a valid complaint, the landlord cannot then evict you.
In Wales, they can... Trust me I learnt the hard way..

Easy enough to say don't rent from a crook. What would be more useful is if crooks were barred from being landlords ie if we had a rental system that was even semi regulated. But we don't. Telling people not to rent from crooks is like admonishing victims of theft for being stolen from. The problem isn't tenants but landlords.

DuchessofThingy not at all (about the singling out thing), but the issue with the spillage was it happened after I’d moved out and was (I can only assume) caused by my former flat mate (he stayed and took on the tenancy by himself) or a guest he had there. I couldn’t have cleaned anything after the Saturday as I lived somewhere else. I suppose it’s a strange situation inspection wise as I explained I/we couldn’t have a professional clean done as he was still living there and therefore all his furniture was obviously still there. They were fine with this and I arranged with him that I’d pay half when he moved out (I knew he wasn’t planning on staying beyond a year) for a professional clean. He said I didn’t need to as I’d paid the original deposit and first months rent.

The second place, well yes I’d agreed to rent for a year, but (IMO) the place should have been fit to live in. I moved in in the summer so the damp wasn’t so noticeable (the day I viewed it there were 4 other people viewing at the same time so didn’t really get a detailed look and only had that day to view and find somewhere) after a couple of months, it was horrendous and very little would stop it. I thought that the dispute service may look at whether the place was fit to live in, but they don’t. Lesson learned. Should I ever be in the position of having to rent again, I’m now much more clued up on what to expect and what is expected. They also claimed I’d left ‘rubbish’ by leaving the Yellow Pages! Again, that one went in my favour. I’m now off to enjoy my holiday breakfast!

Are there any lettings managers on here? What a job - how do you do it - seriously? I left a rental property spotless and I am now being told I will not get 90% of my deposit back! Just looked up their dispute procedure I suspect most people give up because they don't have the time or energy. I am really upset. I was a bloody good tenant. I paid my rent in advance for six months at a time, tended the garden, cleaned the place for 2 days before I left, filled and painted any holes and general wear and tear. This is like a kick in the teeth I am so upset.

I used to work for a property management company.
They cannot just tell you that you aren't getting 90% of your deposit back.
Your deposit should be lodged with a protection scheme (we used the DPS) and they have to submit their request and you can agree to it or contest it. If you contest. They then have to submit their evidence (invoices for cleaning, photographs before and after) to prove you are a liable. You should also be able to submit any evidence to show you are not liable

Howthehell. It's worth fighting it. I did and got it all back. Took 6 months though.

I've had this from previous landlords as a student, but I wouldnt budge further from £10 for paint. I started mentioning trading standards (or whoever it was) and they gave in real quick. That was a terrible flat though, it had mould growing on the walls in my bedroom which I complained about and they told me to just wash the walls. They were stupid.

I doubt I'll have to with my new landlord. They are great.

I'm a landlord and certainly don't see the deposit as my own.

In regard to repairs, my tenants contacted me about where they'd cleaned in the kitchen and some of the paint had come off (a tiny amount).

They were so worried that I'd take it out of the deposit that not only did I tell them it was only "wear and tear" so they needn't worry. I also sent them information about their rights as tenants and how to hold me to account should I ever act up (which, of course, I won't).

Thank you for your advice everyone. I certainly will fight this and take it to dispute. It is horrible. I might have well as left it in a right state and been a nightmare tenant!

@howthehelldoIcopewiththisone asking any lettings agents how they do it is a daft question. It's like asking you, a tenant, how do you shaft landlords on not paying rent and leaving with arrears? Most tenants don't. Most landlords don't. There are bad ones, like there are bad tenants.

I work in a letting agents, albeit as the accounts manager, not the lettings manager. We will have to keep s little from the deposit for rent arrears maybe a third of the time- lots of tenants give in their notice and expect that to be it in terms of rent, and don't factor in the extra week or whatever from their next rent due date to their leaving period.

But in terms of damages, I can think of maybe 10-25 cases in the past 3 years of working there where we have kept ANYTHING, and only one case where we kept all of it as the gent damaged a sofa, chair and a radiator so took the furniture with him when he left, we replaced with new (furniture new when he moved in, melted wax/ cig burn within a week).

The most common deduction by far is people putting straighteners on a bedroom carpet and singeing it, the whole carpet then needs replacing.

@howthehelldoIcopewiththisone I would ask them to provide photographic evidence and invoices for the works carried out that they are planning to deduct from your deposit.
You should also have been advised which scheme your deposit is protected with (to ensure it has been protected). Protecting a deposit is a legal requirement

knobjockey - my letting agents have been totally useless and never dealt with any issues raised without multiple phone calls and emails from myself. In the end I organised and dealt with most issues myself. I was left without a boiler for 7 weeks. Broken grill for 8 months. I always paid my rent six months in advance in full and when they came to do viewings at the end of my tenancy after 18 months they actually said the house looked "so good" they let it straight away.

I could have written your post!! My ex landlord is currently withholding 80% of our deposit and it’s in dispute. It’s for things like carpet cleaning (done) broken window handle (wasn’t broken when we left) and broken curtain pole (reported as broken via email in 2016) We also cleaned for about 2 week’s solidly after work and he called our cleaning haphazard. The whole house has now been refitted ie new kitchen, windows, carpets, WC. So not sure what they would spend our deposit on as they cannot ‘better’ their property.

Thanks justmsrtied and everyone. Some of the LLs on here - For what it’s worth I have been a LL myself in the past. We rent for many different reasons. In my case I left a marriage after 20 years and moved out while we agreed on a settlement. Now I am extremely fortunate to be in a position to buy a property unlike others. I feel so sorry for those trapped by unscrupulous LLs Rented my flat in London to a lovely American lady who when she left stole a chair and a lamp. And left a huge BT bill!

For example, in England, if you go to housing standards with a valid complaint, the landlord cannot then evict you.
In Wales, they can...

That's shocking. It's also very unusual for Wales to have different legislation from England. If anyone knows why, I'd love to know.

I had this... rented a flat for a year, in fairness it was clean when we moved in so I paid for it to be professionally cleaned when we moved out. I attended the check out with an inventory clerk who told me we'd looked after the place very well and she saw no issues. I then get an email from the letting agents saying "The landlord is just deciding how much he wants to deduct from your deposit" - like it was his own personal kitty!
I had been screwed over by a landlord at university so fortunately I had read up on my rights this time and told the letting agents if the landlord wanted to dispute the independent inventory check to let me know ASAP, so I could start the dispute process. Got my full deposit back within an hour. Some LL are such chancers. The LL happened to be a fairly well known celeb as well so hardly short of a few bob.

I've heard some shocking cases in my time.

One landlords tried to withold an entire deposit (£2k) because the house needed recarpeting throughout. The carpets were the ones fitted by the developer when the houses were built 10 years earlier. A colleague knew the firm that had done the work and they confirmed this in writing to the DPS, the deposit was refunded in full. (The tenant should have got compensation imo: she had been unable to use the garden for 2 years after a retaining wall fell down and half the adjoining field slid into the garden, had had cars damaged by flying roof tiles because the landlord refused to fix the roof until the post office stopped delivering because of risk to the postman, and the kitchen flooded in heavy rain because the drainage outside the back door was woefully inadequate).

But my favourite was the one where the landlord tried to withold a deposit to cover the cost of repairing and replastering a bedroom ceiling ... that the landlord had stuck his foot through while inspecting the leaky roof!

It's not just tenants that suffer either. A friend has a beautiful seafront flat in a Regency building. The flat above is rented out. There is some sort of problem with seal around the bath/shower in the flat above and at least once a year it floods her bedroom.

This is now excluded from her insurance and she has to sue the owner of the property for compensation for the damage it causes. He lives overseas so it's difficult to enforce the court judgment. She has to get a special order so that the money is paid to her by the letting agents out of the rent before they pass it on to the landlord.

She wants to downsize and retire but knows it will be hard to sell for anything like its true value because of all the issues with the flat upstairs.

No I can't agree with the title. I was a reluctant landlord when we lived overseas. I never received or had any control over the deposits. The letting agent had all the control.

I had to evict my final tenants as they didn't pay rent. It cost me a thousand pounds in legal fees, they owed me thousands in rent and caused thousands in damage. I still had a battle to get hold of the deposit and it was a fraction of what I lost.

Yes...yanbu. they are greedy , ungrateful bastards. Not content with gaving one property, they rely on others to pay for another mortgage and expect fucking miracles of cleanliness etc.
I have rented from two women i know pwrsonally, as soon as became a tenant i was dirt in their eyes...disgusting attitudes.

Typos...phones sorry.

Yanbu op that has been the case for us too. One landlord we had to take through the deposit protection scheme appeal because she made up a load of lies and tried to claim for all sorts, another we had to sue through the small claims court as she hadn’t even protected the deposit. Both times we got the money back, but it’s hassle we didn’t need just because the landlords are too greedy and see the deposit as their own

That’s how I feel malificent - I feel like they treat me like dirt in their eyes. One if the issues is They are trying to charge me £90 for leaving a water butt in the garden I thought might be useful for the next tenant. I said I will come and remove it myself rather than be charged. They said you can’t you will be trespassing!!!! I said I will knock politely and ask them they said no - you will still be trespassing! don’t know how some people get these jobs ! My property manager said to me - I never visit properties - like he was proud of himself! When I said that’s not a very good job description you have then - he threatened to end the call because I was talking down to him! Honestly? I can only presume he is related to the owner of the business because no one else would employ him

I used to a property manager

In my ideal world every tenant would get their full deposit back asap because its a pain in the arse and takes a lot of time and effoort to make deductions and so if they have deductions it caused a lot of extra work so for sure they were gonna pay for it.
I backed up all deductions with inventory, photo and invoice so they couldnt complain

I need your advice please! What do I say to dispute my landlord trying to take £1500 for a house that was in such poor condition when we moved in! You name it, stained walls, carpets countertops. They now want to use us as an excuse to redecorate. I'm so upset!

Currently going through this but ftom the other side. We are the lanlords and we're actually moving back into the property and have been shocked at the issues we've been left to deal with. I wish it was as simple as needing carpets cleaned. They had 4 cats apparently, against the lease terms, and they've pissed all over the living room carpet... it stinks and is damp and will need completely replacing including the underlay. And that's just one of the issues. Left us without a working washing machine, that isn't the original one, curtains removed and not replaced..Not cleaned. so yes we're aiming to claim back the bulk of their deposit. but of course we'll be forced to go to arbitration because they won't accept any responsibility. I would give it all back if it was just a case of not being quite clean enough...but this is going to cost us hundreds possibly thousands to fix. So sometimes there is very good reason for making these claims.